


Military Discount

by flawedamythyst



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, Lucky the pizza dog - Freeform, M/M, Mention of drug addiction, Mention of forced prostitution and sex trafficking, Prostitution, Slow Burn of the Emotional Variety, This fic is not as dark as the tags make it seem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-15 04:00:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 68,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18066206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: It's been a long six months for Bucky since the fall of SHIELD, on the run from both Hydra and law enforcement. When he gets to Brooklyn looking for a break, it doesn't seem like that big a deal to let a hooker talk him in to a quick blowjob to help him relax.That's only the start though, and before he knows it, he's getting to know the hooker's dog and is fighting Russian pimps as the unofficial bouncer of Brooklyn's red light district, all while trying to avoid a run in with Captain America.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Kangofucb and Villainny for betaing and cheerleading. You two are the best.
> 
> This fic is all written, and I expect all 11 chapters to be posted over the next two to three weeks.

Bucky knew he was doing a shit job of looking like just another guy, even one of the rough guys that hung out in this part of Brooklyn. He was just so tired, too tired to stop himself from projecting dangerous vibes that made even the hookers gathered under the puddles of streetlight back away into the nearest alleyway, hiding away because even the most desperate wasn’t about to risk being alone with someone like Bucky.

He wasn’t here for that, though. He was here because Hydra thought they were too good to hang out in this part of town with those who had hit rock bottom and found somewhere lower to go, and because no one around here was going to talk to the cops, not even about the shady guy who had nightmares loud enough to wake up the whole block. After nearly a year of running from both, Bucky just wanted to find a place to hole up in for a few weeks where he didn’t have to be looking over his shoulder quite so much. If that meant squatting on a street with drug addicts and prostitutes, well, at least none of them were going to lock him up for crimes he’d not wanted to commit, or put him back in that damn chair so that he’d commit more.

He’d find a place where he could squat and get a few hours sleep, and then he’d worry about how to stand out less, so that even if the prostitutes could tell he didn’t have a penny to spare for that kind of thing, they wouldn’t hide away as he passed.

“Hey, handsome, looking for a good time?”

Bucky didn’t realise he was being addressed until the guy winked at him, and then he was so surprised that his steps faltered and he stared instead of replying.

The blond guy leaning against a wall clearly figured that for a sign of interest, because he straightened up, rolling out a broad set of shoulders underneath a muscle shirt and taking a step towards Bucky, thumbs hooking into his belt loops as if to frame the goods on sale. 

“You seem like you could do with some stress relief.”

Shit, the guy must have some kind of death wish. He didn’t even look intimidated. His stance was loose and easy, and he was grinning at Bucky more as if he were a guy he’d seen across a bar than as if he were a potential customer.

“I ain’t got money for that kinda thing,” said Bucky, startled into speaking with too much honesty, when he should have just said he wasn’t interested, told the guy to fuck off and got the hell out of there so the guy didn’t get a good look at his face.

“Is that so?” asked the guy, giving Bucky a deceptively bland look at the same time as his eyes darted over his body, lingering on the signs Bucky hadn’t quite managed to hide that he wasn’t as destitute as he wanted people to think. His jacket was patched and his hoodie was frayed but he hadn’t been willing to part with his combat boots, and he knew the leather gloves were too obviously expensive but he couldn’t risk anyone seeing his hand.

The guy didn’t mention any of that, though, he just tipped his head to one side and darted his tongue out to wet his lower lip. “You know, you’ve got the look about you of a vet. Have you served?”

Bucky felt his shoulders tense and he glowered at the guy, wondering why he wasn’t just walking on and leaving him behind.

Except the flash of that tongue, along with the obvious offer in his stance, had given Bucky all kinds of unwelcome mental images. Old memories of meeting guys like this on street corners were swimming up in his brain, although he didn’t think he’d been paying for it back then.

Fuck, he wasn’t paying for it now.

“None of your business,” he snapped.

The guy’s grin didn’t dim. If anything, it grew wider. Did he have no sense of self-preservation at all? “Because if you are, you’re in luck. I’ve got a military discount. Only twenty bucks for a blowjob, and we can do it right here.” He jerked his head back at the alley behind him. “Twenty bucks, fifteen minutes, and you’re heading on your way with a lighter heart and a skip in your step.”

It had been so long since Bucky had had anything like that, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever had it with anyone as hot as this guy, who was the kind of built Adonis that he’d have happily made a play for in one of the dingy underground bars of his youth, and probably been shot down by. Or maybe not. Bucky’s memory was still very ropey in places. For all he knew, he’d fucked this guy’s spitting image. His grandpa or something and, shit, that wasn’t a great thought to have.

The guy’s grin turned smug as Bucky’s hesitation became obvious. “Promise it’ll be worth it,” he said. “I’m fucking awesome at what I do.”

All at once, Bucky felt his will power crumble. He was so damn tired of running and hiding, and this had been the longest conversation he’d had in weeks, why the hell shouldn’t he get a little pick-me-up? The guy certainly seemed eager enough to do it.

Bucky glanced over his shoulder at the street, checking automatically for anything out of place. Nothing stood out, so he looked back at the guy. “Twenty bucks,” he agreed.

The guy beamed at him. “Awesome.”

He led the way into the alleyway, turning his back on Bucky as if he’d never heard of self-preservation, then gestured at a stretch of wall far enough inside to be out of sight from curious passers-by. “Prop yourself up there,” he said. “Trust me, you’re gonna want something helping to keep you upright, once I get going.”

Bucky snorted as he leaned against the wall. “You’re pretty sure of yourself.”

“No unsatisfied customers,” said the guy, dropping to his knees in front of Bucky and giving him a wink that Bucky could barely see in the dim light of the alley. It was only from that angle that Bucky noticed the silhouette of his ears looking larger than they should, and he realised he was wearing hearing aids.

How the hell hadn’t he spotted those earlier? Either the observational skills that Hydra had tortured into him were failing, or he’d been far too distracted by just how hot the guy was.

The guy didn’t bother touching Bucky any more than to undo his pants, pulling his cock out with careful hands and making Bucky shiver at the unfamiliarity of someone else’s touch on his skin, especially somewhere as vulnerable as his cock.

His fingers were rough and sure though, and Bucky could feel himself growing harder from the feel of calluses running up the length of his cock.

“Oh, this is going to be good,” the guy murmured, pulling a condom out of his back pocket and rolling it on with practised hands.

Bucky still couldn’t quite settle into the fact that this was happening, at least not until the guy leaned in and took him in his mouth, enveloping him in heat and setting a cascade of memories free in his head. Fuck, this was definitely not the first time he’d done this in an alleyway. 

He didn’t remember it feeling this good though, as the guy worked him over with his mouth and tongue, drawing heavy pants out of Bucky as he leaned his head back against the wall behind him. He wanted to watch what the guy was doing, take in the sight of his mouth stretched around Bucky’s cock and doing incredible things, but it was too dark in the alley for much detail and besides, he couldn’t kill off the paranoia that kept him glancing back towards the street.

He was achingly hard and wondering just how long he was going to be able to hold off coming when the guy changed the angle of his head and, jesus fuck, swallowed the whole of Bucky’s cock down his throat in a way Bucky definitely hadn’t experienced before because no way Hydra’s chair could have wiped that memory from him.

“Ah, hell,” he bit out, cupping his hand around the back of the guy’s head but taking care not to apply any pressure. It wasn’t as if the guy needed any guiding, not when all his earlier cockiness about his skills had proven to be justified.

The guy’s eyes flicked up to meet his, amusement clear in them as a car passed by on the street, sending a flash of headlights through the alley. The glint of laughter in his blue eyes was what sent Bucky over the edge, coming with a grunt and feeling his knees turning to water.

The guy was grinning when he pulled back, looking up at Bucky as if he’d won the damn lottery rather than just pulled a trick in an alleyway. “Told you I was good.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Bucky, taking a moment to get his breath back. “It’s kinda been a while for me though, it wasn’t like I had high standards.”

The guy laughed, shifting away before he stood up so that Bucky had space to take off the condom and tie it up before doing his pants up. He felt bad about pitching it into a corner but he could see a pile of similar items, so it wasn’t like one more was going to make much difference.

“I guess I’m honoured you let me break your dry spell, then,” said the guy.

Bucky rolled his eyes, because there was no way this guy was for real. He found his wallet in and pulled out twenty bucks. “Sure, it’s all about the honour,” he said, holding it out to him. “Not the money at all.”

The guy shrugged as he took it and tucked it away. “Hey, I’ve done worse for less.”

Bucky didn’t want to think about that. He definitely didn’t want to think about the fact that he seemed like a nice guy, one who Bucky would have wanted to be friends with before the war, maybe even more than that, but who he’d just used for a bit of instant gratification. Fuck, this was the kind of thing that Steve would hate.

Except Bucky had spent the months since dragging them both out of the Potomac trying his hardest not to think about what Steve would say about his day-to-day choices. He figured nothing he’d done in the last seventy years was going to be anything that would go down well with Captain freaking America, and paying a hooker for an alleyway blowjob was nowhere near the worst thing on that list.

“I’ve gotta go,” he said, stepping away from the wall and feeling his shoulders hunch over again.

The guy nodded, turning to head back to the street. “Well, anytime you want a replay, I’m here pretty much every night,” he said, with more cheerfulness than that depressing statement warranted. “Military discount’s good for whatever you want.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” said Bucky, already planning to never see the guy again.

He couldn't stop himself from looking back when he got to the corner though. A car had pulled up next to the guy and he was leaning down to talk to the man inside, wearing the same bright grin that he'd used on Bucky.

_You're just another customer. He won't remember you,_ he thought, and he'd meant it to feel like a good thing because his anonymity was the only thing keeping him safe, but somehow it just stung.

****

Bucky’s plan not to see the guy again never got off the ground. The condemned apartment block he'd found to squat in was only one street away from the guy's patch, and he really hadn't been kidding when he said he was always there. Whenever Bucky walked past he was leaning against the same bit of wall, and he always greeted him with a grin.

“Hey Handsome, that discount’s still good.”

Bucky always forced himself to shake his head and told himself that next time he’d go home another way. Somehow he always found himself back there the next day though, eyes lingering on the guy's biceps and responding to his greeting with a sharp look that never seemed to be enough to discourage him.

He had one last Hydra base to take down, but when he’d done that he found himself with no plan other than to lie low and keep out of everyone’s way for a bit, before he worked out how to get across to Europe to take out Hydra’s bases there. He did have a fuckton of money though, because apparently that base had been where Hydra had stockpiled their ready cash.

Bucky carried a bag of it back to his squat and just stared at it all, thinking about finding somewhere nicer, maybe setting himself up with a proper life while he took a break from taking down Hydra.

What the hell did a proper life look like, though? And how was Bucky going to fool anyone who was actually looking that he was a normal guy? At least no one in this neighbourhood spared a second glance for a twitchy guy with too many weapons, and it didn’t get any more off the grid than this. Staying where he was while he figured out a plan made much more sense.

And it had nothing to do with getting to see the guy every day. After all, there were hookers all over the damn country if Bucky decided that was something he wanted. Nothing special about that one in particular.

There was a library a few blocks away from Bucky’s apartment that he started spending a few hours in every day. It was small and the librarian spent half his time acting as a security guard, but no one bothered Bucky there and it had enough books on the last seventy years for him to start trying to catch up. The fact that the walk home went along Hamilton Street, where the guy had his patch, was completely unrelated.

Bucky was heading home one day as the light faded from the sky, sheltered under an umbrella. It was pouring with rain and had been all day, and all the usual denizens of the streets had disappeared, hopefully somewhere sheltered.

Except the guy. He was still at his corner, wearing nothing more than a t-shirt and looking like a drowned rat.

“Hey, Handsome!” he called as Bucky stared at him.

“Are you insane?” asked Bucky, unable to stick to his usual policy of ignoring him in the face of such stupidity. “You're gonna catch your death out here. What the hell? You can't seriously think you're gonna get any customers in this.”

“Guess that depends on you,” said the guy, with a wink.

“You do have place to go, right?” asked Bucky. The guy didn't look homeless, but that didn't mean he wasn't. 

“Oh, tons,” said the guy. “All over. Bed-Stuy, Manhattan, Washington DC, London, Budapest…”

Bucky just kept staring, and the guy's shoulders slumped. “Yeah, okay, but I need to make a bit of cash tonight. I only need one punter, then I’ll be good.”

Bucky reached into his pocket. “Just take twenty bucks and get home and dry,” he said, pulling out his wallet.

The guy shook his head and even took a step back. “Oh no, no way. I don't take charity.”

Bucky paused with the note in his hand. Was this guy for real? “You’d rather die of hypothermia while waiting for a trick that’s not coming?” he asked incredulously.

The guy recovered his grin and winked at him. “Oh, my tricks always end up coming, Handsome.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Just take the damn money, go home and dry out, and you can pay me back some other time when you’ve got it,” he said, holding the money out.

The guy’s eyes lingered on it for a moment, then darted back up to Bucky’s face. “Oooor…” he said in a drawl, “I could blow you now, and not have to worry about being in anyone’s debt.”

Christ, this guy was impossible. “Tough luck,” said Bucky. “I’m not actually desperate enough for an alleyway suck in the middle of a monsoon.”

The guy tipped his head back, letting the rain fall onto his face, then looked back at Bucky. “No way this is close to a monsoon, but I take your point. Good thing I know somewhere dry for us to go.”

“No,” said Bucky immediately, because he barely knew the guy and he wasn’t following him anywhere. Also, he wasn’t going to give in and let him blow him again, no matter how much his cock was perking up at the memory of just how hot and perfect that mouth had been last time. “Don’t be a punk, just take the money so we can both go home.”

The guy laughed. “‘Punk’? Sorry, grandpa, I was kinda born a punk. And I told you, I ain’t taking charity. I’m not gonna be beholden to anyone. If this isn’t a business deal, it’s nothing.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the wall, trying to look as relaxed and easy as he always did, but Bucky caught the faint flinch as his back hit the cold, wet stone.

Ah hell. He was going to have to get a blowjob for this guy’s own good. At least that was what he told himself as he let his shoulders slump and nodded his agreement. “Fine. But this place better not be too far.”

The guy perked right up. “It’s just around the corner,” he promised. “This way.” He gestured down the street and Bucky followed him. “You seriously didn’t think I do all my business down that alley?”

“I didn’t think about it,” said Bucky. 

The guy glanced at him with a faint frown, then gave a half-shake of his head. “Didn’t catch that, sorry.”

Bucky did his best not to look at the hearing aids he was wearing, because that was none of his business. 

“Not exactly my area of expertise,” he said instead, pitching his voice louder over the sound of rain hitting his umbrella. He’d been involved in so many crimes over the last sixty years, it seemed weird that there was a whole area of vice that he knew nothing about, but soliciting had never been Hydra’s thing.

The guy was keeping his distance from Bucky even though getting close would have put him underneath the umbrella. Bucky was beginning to think he just liked being soaking wet.

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” said the guy. “Hey, I’m Jack by the way, what do you want me to call you?”

There was no way in hell that Jack was this guy’s real name, but Bucky wasn’t about to hand his out either. “John,” he said, which made Jack snort with amusement.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I guess that fits.”

They’d turned a corner and stopped outside a metal shutter. Jack pulled out a key and undid the lock, pulling it up to reveal a concrete corridor lined with storage units. Bucky hesitated before going in, checking over his shoulder. There were no other exits once he was inside, and he wasn’t that keen on getting trapped with a guy who was as good as a stranger.

Jack paused just inside and looked back at him. “I’ll leave that shutter open,” he said. “Promise not to get between you and the way out.”

Bucky set him a sharp look and he shrugged. “I know vets,” was all he said, and then he headed down to one of the units, opening up the door and gesturing inside. “Come on, you won’t regret this, I promise. You didn’t last time, right?”

Bucky took a deep breath and followed him, putting the umbrella down and propping it against a wall. He wasn’t about to be patronised over his justifiable fear of being ambushed in tight quarters by some street hustler.

The storage unit was pretty small, just big enough for an army cot covered with a seedy-looking blanket. Bucky eyed it from the doorway as Jack settled himself on the cot.

“Okay, so it’s not the Ritz,” he acknowledged, “but, come on, I stand on a street corner, you can’t have been expecting silk sheets and Champagne.”

Bucky glanced out at the corridor. “And the owner just lets you turn tricks here?”

Jack snorted. “Half these units are used for this. It’s only cuz of the rain that there’s no one else around tonight.” He stood up, moving to the back wall, then gestured at the cot. “C’mon, take the weight off.”

Bucky firmly squashed the voice pointing out what a bad idea this was and went inside, drawing the door half-closed but leaving a gap through which he could keep an eye on the exit, then sat down on the edge of the cot. “You’re pretty bossy for a hooker.”

Jack shrugged, moving closer once Bucky was settled and dropping to his knees before he shuffled between his legs so that he wasn’t looming over him. “Not always, but you seem like the kinda guy that works best with being told what to do.”

Bucky couldn’t stop himself from flinching back at that, remembering years of handlers telling him that he had to follow orders because he couldn’t be trusted to make his own decisions.

_We know best, just do exactly as we say,_ whispered a long-dead voice in Bucky’s ear, and for a moment he thought he was going to throw up or run out.

Jack put a hand on Bucky’s knee. “Hey, okay, wrong thing to say, sorry, won’t mention it again. How about you tell me what to do then, huh? This is on your dime, what do you want?”

Bucky had to take a couple of deep breaths before he could process that. When was the last time he’d been the one giving the orders? He didn’t even know.

“I guess you should undo my pants,” he said.

Jack grinned at him. “Good start,” he said, and somehow managed not to make it sound patronising. 

He slid his hands up the insides of Bucky’s thighs, moving slowly, either as a tease or to give Bucky time to adjust. It worked as both, because by the time Jack was easing down the zipper of Bucky’s pants, he was getting hard and was more eager to get to the point of this thing than he was to get the fuck out so he could hide away.

Jack’s hands were damp and cold, which didn’t feel the best on Bucky’s cock as he pulled it free of his pants. Bucky looked down at his dripping wet hair and thought about how damp this whole thing was going to get.

“You got a towel anywhere?”

Jack blinked as if that had been the last thing he’d been expecting, then snorted a laugh. “Man, you’re really stuck on this rain thing, huh?”

“You’re gonna get my clothes all wet,” Bucky pointed out.

Jack laughed and sat back on his heels, rubbing at his hair and sending a shower of droplets everywhere. “Yeah, probably,” he agreed. He reached over into cardboard box that was showed in the corner, pulling out a condom that he sent spinning at Bucky, hitting him right on the nose. “Put that on and I’ll see what I can do about drying off, Princess.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I think I prefer ‘Handsome’,” he muttered, eyeing the condom packet and trying to remember exactly what Jack had done with it last time. These things had changed a lot from the ones he remembered from the War. A flash came to him of stealing Steve’s out of his kit, because they'd both known it wasn’t like he was ever going to use his ration.

He blinked a few times, pushing that memory away to be examined later, as Jack rummaged in the box and pulled out a towel that looked in an even worse state than the blanket, which he rubbed roughly over his head.

When he pulled it away, his hair looked so ridiculous that Bucky couldn’t keep in a snort of amusement. “I thought bed hair was meant to come after the sex.”

Jack rolled his eyes, hands going automatically to his ears to resettle his hearing aids. “There’s really no pleasing you, is there?”

Bucky ripped open the condom packet and pulled out the condom, and that looked much more familiar. He found that his fingers knew exactly how to roll it on his cock in one slick movement.

“I don’t know, you managed it well enough last time,” he said. Something about the situation, about being two guys hidden away in a cramped space, cracking jokes and knowing that there was only one reason they were there, was so familiar that he could feel himself relaxing into it.

“And I definitely will again,” said Jack, shuffling forward and licking his lips as he glanced up at Bucky’s face. “I hope that’s dry enough for you, because I don’t exactly have a hairdryer in here.”

“It’ll do,” said Bucky, and couldn’t stop himself from stroking over Jack’s ridiculous spiky hair, the leather of his glove sliding over the damp mess. He spread his knees wider and gently pulled Jack towards his cock. “You can go ahead.”

“Oh, you’re too kind,” muttered Jack, but he was already reaching for Bucky’s cock, so Bucky ignored him.

His mouth was just as perfect this time and he was more adventurous with his hands, stroking over the base of Bucky’s dick and down over his balls as his tongue circled the tip.

Bucky drew in a sharp breath of air, then slumped back against the wall, one hand still tangled in Jack’s hair. “Ah, fuck, that’s good,” he muttered. “Yeah, come on.”

Jack’s eyes flicked up to his face, shining with amusement, but he obediently sucked down further, hollowing his cheeks as Bucky couldn’t stop a groan spilling out.

With a private space and a half-closed door, as opposed to a dirty alleyway, Jack clearly decided he was going to take his time, working Bucky over thoroughly rather than rushing through to the ending. Bucky could feel the pleasure building up slowly, layer after layer piling on top of each other until he couldn’t remember ever feeling this good before, and he hadn’t even come yet.

Fuck, how was he going to be able to keep ignoring Jack when he had this in his memory?

When he came, he couldn’t stop himself clenching his gloved fingers in Jack’s hair, although he’d kept his metal hand clenched around the edge of the cot rather than risk getting it noticed.

Jack sat back with an accomplished grin and flushed cheeks as Bucky caught his breath. There was an unmistakable bulge in his pants that Bucky blinked at.

Jack snorted. “Just ignore that, I get turned on when I’m fucking awesome at something.”

“I can’t get over how modest you are,” said Bucky, which won him a laugh from Jack.

“I don’t see you complaining about my awesome blowjob skills,” he said, snagging a trash bag and holding it out for Bucky to dump the condom in before he did his pants back up. “I’m just hoping I’m awesome enough to not have to spend so much time persuading you next time.”

“Who said there’d be a next time?” asked Bucky, because this had been a damn favour so that Jack wouldn’t stand out in the rain all night, and he needed to remind himself of that before he agreed to come back for more of the same every night that he stayed in the area.

Jack stood up, taking a step back so that he wasn’t blocking the door, which made Bucky take a deep breath. It wasn’t just that this guy was incredible at sucking cock, it was that he was funny and hot and remembered little things like that without making a big deal of them. Fuck, he was the first person that Bucky had felt a connection to since he’d broken free from Hydra's control and left Steve unconscious on the river shore.

He was a hooker, though. It was part of the job for him to make his customers think they had a connection, so that they’d keep coming back.

Bucky made himself stand up, pulling out his wallet. “What do I owe you?”

“Twenty,” said Jack.

Bucky glared at him. “I ain’t taking a military discount or what-the-fuck-ever from a guy that wouldn’t take twenty bucks out of fear of charity.”

“It’s not charity,” said Jack. “I’m just really grateful for your service.” He gave Bucky a broad smirk and a wink.

Bucky snorted. “Nothing worth being grateful for about my service,” he muttered, and pulled out forty bucks. He held it out to Jack with a glare that he hoped made it clear he wasn’t going to fuck about on this one.

Jack rolled his eyes, but he took the money, tucking it away in a back pocket.

Bucky waited as Jack locked up before heading back out into the rain, putting his umbrella up and hesitating before stepping close enough to hold it over Jack's head as he locked the outer door.

“Thanks, man, but I'm only going to drenched on the way home,” said Jack.

“You are definitely going home then?” asked Bucky.

Jack nodded. “Yep. Got my money now, so it's dry clothes and curling up on the sofa with my dog.”

“You've got a dog?”

Jack's grin fell off his face for the first time that Bucky could remember and was replaced by a glare. Apparently he felt really strongly about his dog. “What, hookers can't have a dogs?”

Bucky shook his head. “Sorry. I guess it seems like you spend a lot of time on the street. I thought dogs didn't do well left alone.”

Jack relaxed. “I've got a neighbour who helps out, and Lucky’s pretty independent, anyway.”

Fair enough. It wasn't like Bucky knew a hell of a lot about dogs.

Jack hesitated, then shrugged a shoulder. “Lucky’s why I needed the money. I thought I’d stocked up enough on his food, but it turns out kibble has an expiration date. Who knew? If I didn’t make anything tonight, he’d have gone hungry in the morning. He’s a good boy, he doesn’t deserve that.”

Bucky stared at him. “You couldn’t have just taken my money and paid me back later for that?”

Jack shook his head very firmly. “Nope. He’s my dog, it’s on me to make sure he has everything he needs.”

“Okay,” said Bucky, although he wasn’t sure that made sense to him.

“Anyway, thanks,” said Jack. “I’ll see you around, man. Anytime you want a repeat, you know where to find me.”

Bucky gave a vague nod that he hoped conveyed that that wasn't going to happen, but he didn't know who he was kidding. Once was an aberration but twice was the start of a habit.

It wasn't until he got back to his squat that he found the twenty dollars that had been put back in his jacket pocket.


	2. Chapter 2

The rain had ended by the next day, but there was a cold chill in the air that signalled winter still had a firm grip. Bucky stopped at the coffee shop opposite the library on his way home, and got two coffees to go.

Jack was at his corner, still wearing nothing more than a t-shirt despite the cold. “Hey, Handsome,” he greeted Bucky. “Looking for stress relief?”

Bucky shook his head. “Seems like I still owe you twenty bucks.”

Jack’s grin widened. “Don't have a clue what you're talking about,” he said, breezily. 

“Yeah, I thought you might say that,” said Bucky. He held one of the cups out. “So I got you this. It's not charity, it’s coffee.”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, I can see.” He hesitated, then rolled his eyes as he reached out for it. “Okay, fine. You win. This time.”

Bucky allowed himself a smile as Jack took the cup, and it felt alien on his face.

Jack took a sip of the coffee, and the smile he gave Bucky had more depth to it than the wide grins he’d been firing off since Bucky had met him. “I’m betting it didn’t cost you twenty bucks, though.”

Bucky shrugged. “I go past the coffee shop most days.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” said Jack. “Okay, guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Damn straight,” said Bucky, and it was only as he was walking away that he realised he’d made a commitment to another person for the first time since Hydra had taken him. He’d once been so good at making friends and charming girls, and guys, but now it felt like he was walking through a minefield with every interaction. He was pretty sure the only reason Jack hadn’t taken offence at something, or even just gently distanced himself from the weird, awkward guy, was because Bucky was a customer.

Well, if that was what it took. Bucky couldn’t spend the rest of his life just glaring at people. Maybe this thing with Jack was a good way to practise his social skills.

Or maybe he just wanted to have an excuse to get close to him. Bucky shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and reminded himself that crushing on a hooker was a fool’s game. He was just going to bring him coffee for a few days and make some conversation that didn’t end with anyone getting maimed.

The next day, Jack was already reaching for the coffee before Bucky got close enough to hand it over.

“Fuck yeah,” he said, leaning his head over it and breathing in the steam. “I need this today, thanks, man.”

“Bad day?” asked Bucky, as casually as he could. Now he’d decided he was going to try out making conversation with Jack, there seemed to be a whole lot of pressure to get this right. Fuck, was he pressing too much?

Jack didn’t seem to notice anything weird, because he just shrugged. “Kinda, I guess. Lucky -my dog- managed to knock over my coffee pot this morning, and I didn’t have any more grounds. So mainly an under-caffeinated day, I guess? Plus I don’t think I’m getting the coffee stain out of the carpet any time soon, so my landlord is gonna be keeping my deposit.” He considered. “I mean, he probably would be anyway. Owning a dog isn’t exactly great for the furniture.”

Okay, that was a lot. Bucky could totally find a response to all that, right?

Fuck.

“I’m guessing it’s worth it, though,” he tried, because surely that was safe enough? Animal people were always keen to talk about their pets, and it was becoming pretty clear that Jack was an animal person.

“Oh yeah,” said Jack, and his face lit up with that smile that actually looked real again. “Lucky’s the best. We kinda rescued each other.”

There were a million questions Bucky wanted to ask about that, but he had no idea how to phrase them without turning things into an interrogation. He searched for something else to say, and came up lacking.

Luckily, Jack stepped in. “Are you a dog person?”

“I don’t know,” said Bucky before he’d had time to stop and consider what a normal response might be. Fuck, what kind of guy didn’t know if he liked dogs or not? He was doing a really shit job of not coming across as a complete weirdo.

“Okay, that just means you haven’t met enough dogs,” said Jack. “Which is heartbreaking, frankly.”

On the list of heartbreaking things about Bucky’s life, that wasn’t even in the top fifty. He managed a shrug. “I guess,” he said, then bit his lip because the next thing he wanted to say was that he should meet Jack’s dog, but that definitely crossed the line from friendly to creepy.

He thought back through the thin stock of memories that he was hoarding from his life before Hydra. “Our neighbour had one when I was a kid,” he said, slowly, trying to bring the neighbour to mind and failing to even remember if they were a man or a woman. He could remember the dog, though. Some kind of terrier mongrel, splotched white and brown.

Steve had been allergic to it, he suddenly remembered. Whenever he got too close his lungs started to work overtime and he had to be taken outside and sat down with a paper bag. Bucky had made sure to keep his distance from it so that he wouldn’t end up with fur on his clothes that would trigger an attack if he hung out with Steve.

“My- my brother was allergic,” he said, “so we didn’t go near it.”

Jack made a face. “That’s the worst,” he said. “Dogs and small boys are pretty much made for each other. We always had dogs around when I was a kid.”

A sudden flash of memory came to Bucky, of standing in a dark house, holding a treat out to a spaniel. The dog had bounded over from its bed to take it, and he’d sunk his metal arm into its fur and snapped its neck.

He flinched with the sudden shock of the memory as other details flooded in, taking a step back from Jack as he remembered cutting the throats of a sleeping couple, then heading into the bedroom next door, where a small boy was sprawled out over the sheets.

He’d cut his throat as well.

He tightened his hand into a fist, the leather of his glove creaking with the force of it. It took all the strength of will he had not to crush the coffee cup he was holding.

“Oh, wow, uh, hey,” said a voice, and he turned to see a man staring at him with wide eyes. “Could I- Um. How much for you to fuck me while you glare like that? That’s _hot_.”

It took Bucky a few seconds to realise what he was being asked, then he couldn’t stop his glare from growing even fiercer. The man made a whimpering noise as his cheeks flushed and Bucky realise he was turned on.

What the fuck was wrong with some people?

“Sorry, cutie,” said Jack, stepping forward in a casual way that managed to block Bucky from the guy. He’d straightened up in a way that made his height and ridiculous biceps very obvious. “My friend’s not in the business. I bet I can give you what you’re looking for, though.”

“Oh, okay,” said the man, looking disappointed.

“Trust me, you’ll be feeling it for days,” added Jack, and he’d done something to his voice that made it sound gravelly and vaguely threatening.

That was definitely Bucky’s cue to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, then took off without waiting for a response from Jack.

When he glanced back from the corner, unable to stop himself, Jack was ushering the guy in the direction of his storage unit, one hand plastered to the small of his back, still looming over him. Bucky hadn’t noticed just how tall Jack was before and he realised that every time they'd spoken, Jack had been slouching, looking casual and relaxed.

There was no sign of that now. He’d changed his entire stance and demeanour to be what that guy was looking for. Even his walk looked different.

As Bucky forced himself to head home, he wondered how much of what he thought he knew about Jack was real if he was capable of putting on that much of an act for his customers.

****

He had a terrible night. The memory he’d recovered of killing that family got all mixed up with Jack, until it was his throat under Bucky’s knife, his eyes staring up at him with shock as blood soaked into the mattress.

Bucky gave up on trying to sleep an hour or two before dawn. He crouched in the most defensible corner of the apartment he was squatting in, knife in hand, and did his best to take deep breaths and remind himself that it was over. Hydra didn’t have him any more and he wasn’t going to be killing anyone else for them.

Except he was all too aware of just how easy it would be for someone with the right words to turn him right back into that monster. He’d done his best to take out everyone who might have known them, and blown up a fair few bases just in case there were hard copy files, but there was no way for him to know exactly how many Hydra agents had known the key to destroying him, and where they all might be now.

All it took was running into the wrong person, and everything Bucky had fought so hard to rebuild about himself would be wiped away again.

That was one of the reasons why he was keeping away from Steve. Hiding so that no one who had a clue about the Winter Soldier would ever find him was easy here, in this crumbling neighbourhood of petty criminals and addicts. If Bucky went to Steve and ended up surrounded by secret agents and superheroes, he’d be far too easy to find. He knew too much about Hydra’s infiltration of SHIELD to trust that there weren’t double agents scattered all through every agency, government department and major organisation. Hell, even Stark Industries was probably riddled with them, even if Hydra had lost a lot of interest in the company when they stopped making weapons.

When the morning came, he couldn’t bring himself to go back out onto the streets where he might be spotted. He spent the day indoors, telling himself he was improving the defensibility of the building when all he was doing was letting his paranoia get the better of him.

It wasn’t until the light was fading from the sky that he realised he needed to head out now if he was going to take Jack coffee.

He’d as good as promised. Did he want to break the first promise he’d made in seventy years?

He looked out the window at the street and flinched at the idea of being out there, without the protection of walls around him. Was taking a hooker coffee really worth going out right now, when he was so twitchy that he was likely to pull a knife on someone if they moved wrong?

The memory of Jack’s pleased smile came to him, and he gritted out a Russian swear word under his breath, then stomped over to where his jacket was.

He took along a lot more of his armoury than he usually did, and yet still felt naked as he waited in line for the coffee, flinching at every loud noise and glaring at anyone who got close.

He managed to get two cups of coffee and escape the coffee shop without murdering anyone, which felt like more of a success than it should have. Fuck, what was he thinking, coming out when he was this jittery and on-edge? The last thing he needed was to make a scene and draw attention to himself just as he’d found a place where he could lie low for a bit.

Someone bumped into him as he headed down the street and he turned to snarl at them, and only the cups in his hands stopped him from drawing a weapon. Fuck, why did everyone have to be so close and so loud and just so _much_?

Jack was in his usual spot. He straightened up and grinned when he saw Bucky. “Hey, Handsome.”

“Hi,” said Bucky, thrusting a cup at him because once Jack had the coffee, Bucky could go home. “I do have a name, you know,” he couldn’t help snapping.

Jack snorted as he cradled the coffee in both hands. “I'm sure you do, but it's not John. And anyway, if I call that out on this street, every guy who’s here to browse rather than work will think I'm talking to them.”

“Fine,” said Bucky. “Call me-”

His imagination failed. He couldn't go giving his real name to some guy on a street corner, but he couldn't come up with one that felt real enough to be believable.

“Yeah, I'll stick to Handsome,” said Jack. “It has the added bonus of being accurate.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, but he could already feel his bad mood calming. How did talking to this guy for less than five minutes make that happen? “Does that mean I get to come up with something for you, _Jack_?” he asked pointedly. 

Jack shrugged. “If you want,” he said. “Nothing too demeaning though, I charge extra for name-calling.” Bucky was still trying to come up with a response to that when Jack snapped his fingers. “Oh, hey, yeah, I meant to thank you for that dude last night. You wouldn't believe how well he tipped.”

Bucky had no idea what to say to that either. “I didn't do anything.”

“Not true, you totally reeled him in with your sexy glower,” said Jack. “Plus, ah, I may have borrowed some of your mannerisms to give him what he wanted. The growl you do when you're pissed, the way you walk like you're going to stab anyone who dares get in your way, that thing with your eyes where you try and glare someone to death. Yeah, that one. That went down a treat last night.”

Bucky shook his head. He wasn't sure if he was mad about Jack play-acting as him for a client, but he was definitely taken back by the idea that Jack knew him well enough to do it after only a handful of encounters.

“Why the hell would anyone want those things while they're having sex?” he asked, rather than voice that.

“Oh, you have no idea,” said Jack. “Sexy bad boy is actually pretty normal compared to some of the stuff I get.”

“He wanted you to fuck him,” Bucky blurted out before he could stop himself.

“Yeah,” agreed Jack, giving him an amused look over his cup. “Let me guess, you assumed it was always the other way around.”

Bucky had been trying really hard not to think about it, which had actually been working because one thing years of torture and brainwashing had done was to give him great skills at compartmentalising.

“I guess that's the stereotype,” said Jack. “Lying on your back while your ass gets pounded.”

Oh fuck, that was a mental image Bucky was never going to escape. Jack spread out beneath him, ass clenching around his cock and arms stretched above his head, highlighting his biceps. Bucky took a slow, careful breath to try and hide how turned on he'd suddenly got.

Jack saw straight through it. “Ah, not cuz of the stereotype then, but because that's what you'd do.” He leaned back against the wall, putting the long lines of his body on display. “You can, you know. Military discount would apply to that as well.”

Fuck, Bucky wanted that.

Except the blowjobs had been overwhelming enough, how the hell was he ever going to cope with actually fucking Jack? He wasn't anywhere near ready to have someone trapped and vulnerable underneath him like that, especially someone who didn't have the first clue on how dangerous he was.

He wouldn't be able to keep his metal arm hidden either. Keeping a shirt on during sex was one thing, but keeping gloves on was just weird.

He shook his head. “I'm still paying off the last thing,” he said, hefting his coffee pointedly.

Jack shrugged. “Your choice. Just let me know if you change your mind and I’ll clear my schedule for you, Handsome.”

Bucky shook his head again, doing his best to push back the mental images. “I gotta get back,” he said. “Enjoy the coffee.”

“I definitely will,” said Jack, raising his cup in a toast. “Thanks again. Am I gonna see you tomorrow?”

“Sure,” said Bucky, taking a couple of steps away. “I still owe you.”

“Till then, then,” said Jack, and gave him that warm, genuine smile that made Bucky's stomach flutter with unfamiliar emotion.

Bucky spent the walk home telling himself that this was a stupid way to start interacting with people again, and he should just move to a squat in another part of the city where he wouldn't see Jack, then try going to a bar or joining a bridge club or whatever folks did to meet new people these days.

Except, he already knew he was going to be back there tomorrow, holding a coffee and hoping he’d get another of those smiles from Jack.

****

That night, he couldn’t stop thinking about the idea of having Jack underneath him, where Bucky could lean down and kiss that smirking mouth as he thrust into him, kissing away his smile until there was nothing left but breathless need. He found himself unable to sleep for a completely different reason than usual, turned on and asking himself a million questions that only made things worse. Did hookers even kiss their clients? If they did, would it feel clinical, or would Jack put all the acting skills into it that he’d used with that guy the other night, until it felt like it meant something?

Why the hell was Bucky so set on having a fuck he’d be paying for feel like something real?

In the end, he gave in to the thrumming need running through his body and wrapped a hand around his erection. He’d only done this a handful of times since he’d escaped Hydra, and before that, not since the forties.

His body remembered what to do, though. His hand pulled at his cock just right as he fixed his mind on that image of Jack, naked and laid out beneath him, legs wrapped around Bucky’s waist as he thrust into him and hands gripping at the edge of the bed as he pushed up into each thrust, letting out gasps and moans, real ones, not just faking it for a client.

Or maybe he’d cling to Bucky’s shoulders, fingers digging into the muscle as he just took it, until he was shaking and coming, spurting all over Bucky’s belly because fuck condoms, this was Bucky’s fantasy and if he wanted it to end with him filling Jack up with his come, burying his face in one of Jack’s spectacular shoulders as he came, then it damn well would.

Imagining that was what triggered his orgasm. He clenched his eyes shut to lock the mental image in place as he came, gasping loudly in the silent, still air of his apartment.

Afterwards, once he’d cleaned himself up with a tissue and curled up in his sleeping bag, there was a weird, hollow feeling in his chest. Fuck, he really was the idiot having feelings for a hooker.

He hoped like hell that it was just that Jack was the first hot guy he’d actually spoken to in decades, and the first to show any interest in him, even if he was motivated by money.

Except, if Jack was only interested in getting paid, why had he insisted on giving Bucky a discount, and slipped him back that twenty? There had to be more to Jack’s smiles than a rentboy making nice with a potential client.

Or maybe Bucky was just letting himself indulge in wishful thinking.

****

Bucky made it to the library the next day and spent a good few hours reading an encyclopedia that claimed to list the hundred best films of the twentieth century. He found himself remembering seeing some of the older ones, _Gone With The Wind_ and _The Wizard of Oz_ and _Bringing Up Baby_ , which made him feel a bit less like he’d been parachuted into alien territory, which was how he usually felt when he flicked on a TV and tried to figure out what everyone was talking about.

He made himself stay as late as he could before heading off to get Jack’s coffee, but he was itching to see him for most of the afternoon. This was so stupid. How the hell was he letting his whole day revolve around a couple of minutes chatting to a hooker?

Jack rolled his eyes when he saw Bucky, but he was smiling as well. “You musta bought me twenty bucks worth of coffee by now.”

Bucky shrugged as he handed the cup over. “Guess I just found somewhere real cheap.”

“Like I don’t know exactly where this came from, and how much they charge,” Jack said, taking a sip. “I know all the coffee shops round here.”

“Maybe I get a military discount,” said Bucky, which made Jack laugh. There was a weird feeling of accomplishment at that, after so many years of not even being allowed to have a sense of humour.

“So, I should just-” started Jack, then cut himself off, straightening up and staring at something down the street. Bucky turned to follow his gaze.

One of the other prostitutes, a girl who looked worryingly young and on the sick side of skinny, was trying to pull her wrist out of the grip of a huge goon-like guy who was dragging her towards a car.

“Oh, fuck no,” muttered Jack, then took off down the street, dropping his coffee on the way.

Bucky followed only a moment behind, apparently still programmed to chase after blonds confronting bullies after a childhood spent with Steve.

“Vassily!” shouted Jack, then added, “Get your hands off her!” in pretty accomplished Russian.

Vassily turned to sneer at Jack, not letting go of the girl. “Mind your own business, street trash,” he sneered.

“Kinda is my business,” said Jack, pulling up in front of him and looming a bit. “Hey, Katya. I’m guessing you don’t want to go with this ass.”

Katya shook her head, but she was crying and Bucky could see she wasn’t putting up much of a struggle anymore, as if she didn’t see the point.

“I’m not letting you take her, just let go and fuck off,” said Jack.

Vassily gave him a worryingly confident smirk. “Time someone put you in your place, bitch,” he growled, then glanced back at the car.

Two more massive guys got out, one of them with a gun tucked in his pants. Bucky immediately reassessed the threat level and dumped his own coffee so that he could back Jack up.

“She belongs to me,” said Vassily as the two thugs approached. “Bought and paid for. She doesn’t get a choice.”

Bucky hadn’t even realised his fist was moving until Vassily reeled back, letting go of the girl to clutch at his cheek because Bucky had used his left hand and he’d felt bone shatter.

“No one can own someone,” he growled. “Everyone gets a choice.”

The two other guys jumped in before Vassily could react, the one with a gun grabbing it from his waistband. Jack threw himself at him, landing a surprisingly professional-looking roundhouse kick that made him fall back, then following up with a punch to the jaw that distracted him long enough for Jack to rip the gun out of his hands.

Bucky grabbed the second guy before he could intervene, pulling him back and punching him out, with his normal hand this time because he didn’t want to actually murder anyone, not right here on a street where people might start talking about the guy with the super-powered arm.

Vassily came at him with a cry of rage, blood smeared down his face and a knife in his hand, and Bucky let himself fall into the fight as naturally as breathing, only half aware that Jack was fighting next to him with just as much ease and skill, covering his half of the fight as if he were used to doing this with a partner.

The two of them were more than enough to chase the thugs off, sending them running back to the car. Jack grabbed Vassily’s arm before he left, pushing him back against the car with a thump. “Spread the word,” he said. “This street is protected. I don’t want to see you or any other thugs down here, hassling the girls. Or boys,” he added. “From now on, no one owns anyone, we’re all independent contractors. Or next time you won’t be walking away.”

Vassily spat blood-streaked saliva at him, then jumped in the car, which peeled off a moment later.

Jack let out a very long breath, letting his shoulders relax and his fists open, before he turned to the girl. “You okay, Katya?”

She nodded. “Yeah,” she said, drawing in a wet-sounding breath. “Fuck, thanks. Thank you, Ronin, thank you so much.”

Ronin. Huh, okay. Bucky filed that one away for later.

“No problem,” said Jack. “Hey, come on, you’re okay. I told you, we’re not having any of that bullshit on this street, I’ll look out for you all.”

A few of the nearer women had gathered, and one came over to put her arm around Katya. “You’re going to have to keep beating them up,” she said to him as Katya turned into her embrace and rested her head on her shoulder. “They won’t give up, not once their other girls hear and start migrating over here to get away.”

Jack shrugged as if that were no big deal. “Then I’ll keep beating them up.”

“ _We’ll_ keep beating them up,” corrected Bucky, and Jack glanced around at him.

“Hey man, thanks for that,” he said. “You are seriously useful in a fight.”

Yeah, that was what Hydra had thought.

Bucky took a deep breath. Fighting Russian pimps to keep these girls from being treated like property felt like a much better use of his skills than anything else he’d done since leaving Hydra, other than smashing their bases apart, and he’d run out of bases on this side of the Atlantic.

“You don’t need to worry about it, though,” added Jack. “This isn’t your fight.”

Bucky snorted. “It’d be a pretty fucking miserable world if people only ever fought their own fights, and left everyone else to go hang,” he said. He considered. “I mean, it is a pretty fucking miserable world, but at least not everyone is a self-centred asshole.”

The smile Jack gave him was warm enough to make Bucky’s chest hum with pleasure, and he couldn’t stop himself from returning it.

A couple of the women took Katya off somewhere to sort her out, and the others drifted back to their usual spots. Jack headed over to his corner and Bucky found himself following without thinking about it.

“Ronin?” he asked as they walked.

“You can call me that if you want,” said Jack. “I’m not massively attached to Jack.”

Bucky gave him a careful look. “It’s not your real name either.”

“No,” agreed Jack. “What does a name matter, though? I’ve had hundreds over the years. Ronin is as good as any other.”

“I think I’ll stick with Jack,” said Bucky, after turning it over in his head. “If I’m going to be calling you a fake name, I may as well go with the original fake name.”

“Sure, okay, John,” said Jack, grinning at him.

They’d reached Jack’s bit of wall, and he settled in, giving the street a look over that made Bucky think he’d been trained for this at some point. But then, his fighting style had looked pretty slick as well.

“Hey, are you ex-military too?” he asked.

Jack blinked, then shook his head, giving a rueful smile. “Nothing so honourable, I’m afraid.”

Bucky wanted nothing more than to keep asking questions, but there was a look in Jack’s eyes that made it clear he wasn’t going to be answering, so he dropped it.

“That woman was right,” he said instead. “Those guys will be back, and with more friends.”

Jack shrugged. “Yeah, probably. I’ll handle it.”

“And if you’re not here?” asked Bucky. “Or there are too many of them for you?” 

He considered it, looking around the street again, this time with a tactical eye. Hamilton Street, which he’d been around long enough to work out the locals all called Spitzer Street although he hadn’t found out why yet, was the centre of what amounted to Brooklyn’s red light district. There were always plenty of hookers around, both male and female. Most of them had their regular spots, but there were others who came and went. It was lined by shuttered shopfronts, most of which had been long abandoned, but there were a couple of liquor stores and a massage parlour that was nothing of the kind that were still open. They had their own security, but the streetwalkers who spread out along the road had no one watching their backs who’d be able to face up to a handful of Russian mafia types. No one except Jack, apparently. Cops only very rarely came down this way, and when they did, everyone just quietly melted away.

“You need back up,” he realised.

“I can handle myself,” said Jack. “Look, I appreciate you wanting to help, but what are you going to do? You can’t be here every night like some kinda bouncer.”

“Why not?” asked Bucky, with a shrug. “Trust me, I’ve got nothing else to be doing.” He spent most of his evenings in the apartment, going over his weapons or rereading one of the books about the Howling Commandos that he’d picked up over the last few months, trying to put everything together right in his head.

Jack shook his head, glancing away. His eyes lingered on a couple of the women down the street, one of whom was bending to talk to a guy in a car. “Fuck,” he muttered. “I can’t exactly stop you, but this isn’t like bringing me coffee and having a quick chat. You can’t stand with me all night or I won’t get any customers, and I’ve got a dog to feed.”

Bucky shook his head. “Nah, of course not. Besides, that doesn’t make sense tactically, not if we want to keep an eye on the whole street.” Especially as Bucky would find it difficult to watch out for bad guys if Jack was close enough to command his attention. “I’ll hang out down there,” he said, gesturing at a low wall at the other end of the street, away from the liquor stores. “Good vantage point, plus it means we’ve got both sides covered.”

Jack was frowning at him, but when Bucky raised an eyebrow, he just shrugged. “Okay, sure. If you want to spend your time out here in the cold when you don’t have to.”

Bucky had once spent three days standing stock still in the snow, waiting for a target to return home, then shot him through the head and hiked thirty miles to his extraction point. A few evenings sat on a wall were going to be a cakewalk.

“First, though, I’m getting us another set of coffees,” he said. “It’s fucking tragic that those assholes made us lose them before we’d had more than a few sips.”

That wiped the frown off Jack’s face and replaced it with a grin. “Sure,” he said, “but you’re gonna have to let me return the favour some time, especially if you’re going to act as back up for me.”

Bucky shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’s no big deal. It’s not like I can’t afford it.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t push. “Maybe I’ll just offer you a freebie, once you’ve racked up enough credit.”

Bucky snorted. “Now who’s offering charity?” he said, rather than think about how much he wanted that. Fuck, he could give Jack twenty bucks right now, and be pushed up against the wall of the alleyway again to have the post-fight adrenalin used up in a much more pleasurable way.

And now he’d had the thought, it was going to be torturing him all night. “You want a pastry or anything?” he asked, taking a step away before he let himself dwell on it too much.

Jack shook his head and Bucky tore himself away, shoving his hands in his pockets as he strode down the street towards the coffee shop. He shouldn’t go there with Jack again, not if they were going to be working together to keep an eye on the street. Somehow, it didn’t feel professional.


	3. Chapter 3

Setting himself up with a perch on top of the low wall every night gave Bucky a great view of all the men and women who hung out on Spitzer Street, anyone who came up to them and, most importantly, Jack.

Jack had been right when he said hanging out all night wasn’t the same as handing over a cup of coffee and stringing out a conversation as long as possible before heading home. Sat there, even with the book Bucky had started bringing after the first night, when it was clear he didn’t need his full attention on keeping watch the whole time, was not even a little bit the same. Bucky couldn’t stop himself from keeping track of every time Jack disappeared into the alleyway behind his spot with some random guy then came out grinning and shoving notes in his pocket, every time he put a hand on a guy’s back to take him off in the direction of his storage unit, or even the few occasions when he got in someone’s car and was driven off somewhere, presumably to the rent-by-the-hour motel around the corner.

Jack was never gone for longer than an hour, but Bucky was unaccountably tense the whole time he was away, setting down his book to keep a sharp eye out now that he was the only one on guard, and desperately trying to block out the images of just what Jack might be getting up to right at that moment.

He still brought Jack a cup of coffee at the start of every night, though.

“You know, I seriously thought you’d have gotten bored and given up by now,” said Jack on the third night. “It’s not exactly scintillating out here.”

Bucky shrugged. “It’s not exactly scintillating at the place I’m crashing either,” he said. “If I’m going to sit around with a book, might as well be out here as in there.” Especially as they’d finally got around to cutting the electricity off to the condemned building he was living in, so if he was reading at home he’d need a flashlight rather than just angling his book right under a streetlight.

“It’s colder out here,” Jack pointed out.

The nights were starting to get warmer but it was still only just spring and there was a chill in the air once the sun went down. Bucky just shrugged again because, after decades in and out of a freezer, a bit of a nip to the air barely even registered. “I’m not the one hanging out in a tight t-shirt,” he said pointedly, eyeing the purple shirt Jack was in tonight.

Jack grinned and flexed his chest. “Gotta keep the goods on display,” he said. “And let me tell you now, no one’s going to be complaining if you decide to do the same.” He gave Bucky a heated once-over.

As tempting as it was to do anything Jack wanted when he looked at Bucky with that expression, Bucky was all too aware that the less he was wearing, the more obvious it was that one of his arms was made out of metal. From there, it would be all too easy to connect him to the wanted ads that were still occasionally being circulated.

“I haven’t got any goods for sale,” he said, then took a step back, intending to head down to his perch.

He was too busy staring at Jack to watch where he was going, and nearly stepped backwards into a woman who was passing, arms wrapped around her chest.

“Oh, hey, sorry,” he said.

“No problem,” she said, and he recognised her as one of the prostitutes who usually hung out near his perch. She was shaking but he didn’t think it was from cold, although he was pretty sure her tiny skirt wasn’t doing much to protect her from the weather.

“Hey, Julie, you okay?” asked Jack. “You don’t look like you should be out here tonight. You sick?”

She managed a twisted smile. “Something like that,” she said. “Need the money, though. I’m only gonna stay until I’ve got enough, then I’ll get an early night.”

Now that Bucky was looking, he could see dark shadows under her eyes and a grey cast to her skin that didn’t look even a little bit healthy.

“You really think you’re going to earn much, looking like that?” asked Jack sceptically.

She shrugged. “I’ll just cut my prices.”

Which meant it would take her longer to earn whatever she considered ‘enough’. Bucky made a face, then reached into his pocket. “You got a problem with charity?” he asked, and Jack’s head whipped around. Bucky ignored his expression as he held fifty bucks out to Julie.

“Fuck, no,” she said, ripping it from his hands before he could change his mind. “What kind of idiot says no to free money?” Bucky very carefully didn’t turn to look at Jack, although he did hear him let out a long-suffering sigh. Julie gave him a quick glance. “Unless you do want something?” She put a hand on her hip and tried to give him a sexy smirk, but the effect was ruined by the sweat beading on her forehead.

“No, it’s all good,” he said.

“Well, thanks, then,” she said, and flashed a smile. She strode off so fast that Bucky thought she was going to break into a jog, and Jack sighed again.

“You know she’s going to spend that on a fix, right? Drugs?”

“Sure,” said Bucky. “But she was going to be spending money on that either way. This way she’s not spending hours freezing her ass off and getting progressively worse first.”

Jack let out a tired laugh. “You’re quite a guy, Handsome. You realise when everyone else on this street finds out you’ll give money away at the first sign of a cold and a sob story, you’ll be inundated?”

Bucky just shrugged. “I can’t afford to solve all their problems, but if I can help out, I will.”

“Jesus,” muttered Jack, rubbing at his forehead. “How are you even real? You’re way too sweet to be hanging around here.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say to that, because there was nothing sweet about a guy with a bodycount like his. He just shrugged again, and then glanced down the street. “I’ll let you get on,” he said. “Have a good night.”

He headed down to his station, nodding at the people he recognised as he went. He hadn’t realised just how many people he actually recognised on Spitzer Street now, and how many of them he could make a stab at guessing why they were there. There were a fair few addicts of one kind or another, then a handful of immigrants who almost certainly didn’t have the paperwork to get a proper job, and a gang of teenagers who’d run away from bad situations at home and not had anywhere else to go. He’d overheard enough conversations to know which of the others had kids who needed expensive medication, or bills that had piled up until a loan shark had bought them out and started demanding payments that couldn’t be met from a day job. This whole damn street stank of the kind of desperation you only got when you’d been failed by society.

It wasn’t until Bucky was sitting on his wall, holding a book on his lap to cover that he was actually watching Jack as he chatted up a nervous-looking guy in a cheap suit, that he realised he had no idea where Jack fitted in with that. What was driving Jack out on the street every night, rather than going out and getting a regular job?

****

The Russians turned up later that night, waiting until Jack was out of sight before rolling up in a van that burst open to let out five or six thugs who started grabbing the nearest women and trying to force them inside. Bucky immediately leapt down from his perch and pulled out his gun, shooting one in the shoulder as he ran over and another in the knee as one of the women pulled a knife and stabbed a third.

Jack was only up the alley with a client but by the time he sprinted out, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, the Russians had bundled their injured back into the van and taken off again.

“Too slow,” said Bucky.

“Hey!” shouted the client, coming out behind Jack with his pants still undone. “What the hell? When I pay someone for something, I expect them to finish the job!”

“You haven’t paid me yet,” Jack pointed out, “and people were getting hurt.”

The client scoffed. “If you’re gonna go running every time a hooker gets bashed about, you’re never going to make any money.”

Bucky saw Jack’s fists clench at that, but he just shrugged it off. “Guess not,” he said. “Guess you’re not getting your dick sucked, either.” 

One of the other male prostitutes sidled over to the angry client. “Hey, promise I won’t dash off halfway through,” he said. “And my prices are lower as well.”

The client sent one last glare at Jack before heading off with him, which went unnoticed as Jack turned away to the women the Russians had attacked. “You all okay?”

“Fine,” said the woman who had pulled the knife, wiping it on her sleeve and tucking it away. She gave a nod to Bucky. “Thanks to your vigilante here.”

“I’m not a vigilante,” said Bucky, then wondering if he should have objected to being called Jack’s as well. Everyone ignored him.

“When the hell did you get a gun?” asked Jack, frowning at it.

_1941_ , Bucky didn’t say as he tucked it away. “You didn’t think I was going to do this unarmed, did you?” he said instead.

Jack made a face. “Guess not,” he said. “Well, at least they know we’re serious.”

“Which means they’ll get serious,” said Katya, sounding scared.

Jack gave her a reassuring grin. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll just keep fighting them off. I mean, this was pretty easy, right?”

They all nodded in agreement, but Bucky caught the eye of the woman with the knife and knew she was thinking the same as he was. There was only so many times they’d get lucky.

****

Having a sense of purpose and a thing to do every day that was helping other people, even if it wasn’t more than just sitting and occasionally glowering at someone who looked like they were going to cause trouble, was far more settling than Bucky would have realised. His moods began to even out so that he wasn’t spending every other day filled with rage or cowering in the corner of his apartment fighting paranoia, or bleakly wondering if maybe he shouldn’t finish off what Zola had started and find somewhere quiet to let himself die. Instead, he got up every day with the knowledge that he had a place to be, and a job to do, one that was helping people rather than hurting them.

Plus, he was also going to get to see Jack and talk to him for the few minutes it took to hand over his coffee before Bucky retreated to his wall. That was worth struggling through the bad moments he did have. Far more than worth it when he managed to make Jack laugh.

When the Russians finally came for retribution, it was early enough in the evening that Bucky had only just handed Jack his coffee. They clearly wanted to send a message that everyone would see.

They didn’t factor for Bucky, though. As soon as the car started down Spitzer Street, driving slower than if they were just passing through but not slowly enough to be cruising for a hook-up, he turned to look.

There were four guys inside and for a moment he thought they were just tourists, then one of them shifted and he spotted the guns being held out of sight.

“Everyone down!” he shouted as loudly as he could, then turned to shove Jack down just as the men opened fire, bullets thudding into brickwork as screams rang out.

He landed on Jack and barrelled him to the ground, grabbing his own gun and sending a handful of shots after the car as it sped up again. He couldn’t hit anything helpful from the angle he was at but he was damned if he was getting up from Jack and leaving him vulnerable, so the car disappeared without him landing a shot.

“Fuck,” he swore, then looked down at Jack, who was giving him a dazed expression. “Fuck, you okay?”

Jack blinked, then gave Bucky a shove off him. “I’m fine,” he said, sitting up and feeling for his hearing aids, which had become unseated from the fall. He tucked them more securely behind his ears.

“No, you’re fucking not,” said Bucky, because as Jack moved his arm came into sight, streaked with blood.

Jack glanced down at it, and made a face. “Ah, crap. It’s okay, it’s just a graze.”

Bucky ignored that, grabbing his arm and angling it in the streetlight to take a closer look, because he’d heard too many guys telling him they were fine while they were close to bleeding out.

Or maybe they’d all just been Steve. It was hard to separate out, sometimes.

The bullet had only grazed Jack, but close enough that there was a deep wound spilling blood down his arm. Bucky swore under his breath. “You’re gonna need stitches.”

“Aw, no,” said Jack, glancing down. “I hate doing those one-handed.”

Bucky gave him the most unimpressed look he could manage. “You’re not doing them yourself.”

“I’m not going to a hospital,” said Jack immediately. “No way in hell. I can patch myself up, don’t worry about it.”

“Are you okay?” asked Katya, and Bucky realised they’d gathered a crowd.

“Sure,” said Jack. “Anyone else hurt?” He looked around and Bucky followed his gaze, but no one else looked injured.

“They were aiming for you two,” said Julie.

Jack shrugged, then winced as it pulled on his injury. “They missed. Well, mostly missed.” He stood up, swaying for a moment, and Bucky scrambled to follow him, holding his hands out to catch him in case he ended up going down, but apparently the blood loss wasn’t that bad. Yet.

Bucky glanced down at his outfit, but other than tearing up his hoodie, he didn’t have anything he could sacrifice right now, not without putting his arm on display. “Anyone got a handkerchief?” he asked, without much hope. It seemed like carrying a handkerchief everywhere had stopped being a thing some time after Hydra had frozen him the first time.

“Here,” said Julie, pulling off a flimsy scarf she was wearing, “Use this.”

“No, that’s- you shouldn’t mess your scarf up over me,” said Jack, pushing Bucky’s hands away as he went to press it to his injury.

“I think I get to decide what I do with my own scarf,” said Julie. “Besides, I’m not sure it’s my colour.” She tipped Bucky a wink that he returned with a grateful smile as Jack finally stopped fighting him off and let him tie the scarf around his arm.

“Okay, fine,” said Jack with defeat. “But I’m not kidding. I’m not going to a hospital.”

“That’s fine,” said Bucky, checking the tightness of the makeshift bandage. “I can put a few stitches in.”

Jack gave him a doubtful look and Bucky rolled his eyes. “Army gave me medic training,” he said, which wasn’t entirely true. He and the other Commandos had sat through a few rounds of basic battlefield first aid, but learning how to stitch himself up had actually come from Hydra. Back in the early days, they’d taught him to take care of their property, up until they realised that as long as he could drag himself back to base, he’d heal from pretty much anything.

“If you won’t let him look after you,” said Katya, “one of us will. You look after us, after all.”

There were a few sounds of agreement from the crowd and Jack sighed, then gave Bucky a resigned look. “Fine, okay. You’ll have to come back to mine, then. I don’t have a first aid kit in my storage unit.”

“No problem,” said Bucky.

“It’ll mean meeting my dog,” added Jack, in a warning tone.

“Looking forward to it,” said Bucky, without thinking about it much because he was too busy making sure Jack wasn’t swaying.

****

The matter became more pressing when they got to Jack’s apartment, which turned out to be in a nicer building than Bucky would have expected, although the elevator wasn’t working. They made it up to Jack’s apartment without him passing out from blood loss halfway up the stairs, which Bucky had been half-expecting at any moment.

The dog rushed them the moment the door was opened, and Bucky very nearly reacted to the sudden movement by drawing his gun, but he stopped himself at the last moment as Jack went to his knees to greet the dog.

It was a yellow mongrel of some kind, with only one eye and a friendly nature that meant that after Jack had said hello, it came over to sniff at Bucky, wagging its tail.

He held very still. “Hello,” he said, warily.

Jack snorted as he stood up. “Okay, yeah, you’re clearly not used to dogs, I see it now.” He disappeared through a door, leaving Bucky with the dog, who wagged his tail at him for a bit longer, then clearly gave up on a response and went to lie down on his bed instead.

Okay, good. Bucky could work out how to deal with the thing later. He took a second to glance around the apartment. The place was small but not tiny, and the furniture all looked to be in one piece and mostly matching. It was pretty clear that Jack didn’t do much tidying, though. The place was littered with coffee mugs, discarded clothing, dog toys and more blankets than Bucky had seen in one place since Army stores.

Jack came back with a surprisingly large first aid kit, which he dumped on the coffee table. “We’ll need hot water, right?” he said, moving towards the kitchen as Bucky headed for the kit to see what he was dealing with.

“Don’t strain your arm,” said Bucky. “Come and sit down, I’ll get it.”

Jack rolled his eyes as if Bucky were being ridiculous, but did go and sit on the sofa as Bucky sorted through what they had, which was pretty much everything he’d need, including a suture needle in a sterile pack which he was pretty sure most people didn’t keep at home.

“You get hurt a lot?” he asked.

Jack shrugged. “I get into fights with Russian pimps,” he pointed out, which was probably a fair comment. He gently unpeeled Julie’s scarf from his arm, frowning at it as he pulled the makeshift dressing loose. 

“This really isn’t that deep,” he said as Bucky went into the kitchen, which had a large and obviously well-used coffee machine, a couple of bowls for the dog on the floor, and not a lot else. “Are you sure stitches are necessary?”

“Yes,” said Bucky, filling a bowl with warm water and carrying it back over to the coffee table. “Quit stalling and just let me take care of it, would you?”

Jack sighed, then stripped off his t-shirt in one go, balling it up and chucking it into the trash can with a shot that would have been impressive if Bucky hadn’t been so busy pretending not to stare at his abs.

Hot damn, why hadn’t he thought to get Jack naked either of the times they’d hooked up?

“You know, it’s free to look, but if you want anything after this, that military discount still applies,” said Jack, flexing his abs in a way that should have been illegal.

Bucky tore his eyes away from staring. “You’re kidding, right?” he said. “Like hell am I fixing you up just so you can mess it up again by over-exerting yourself.” And then, because he couldn’t keep himself from returning the flirting, even if he knew it didn’t mean anything more than Jack’s usual sales patter, “And trust me, you would be over-exerting yourself, once I got hold of you.”

Jack laughed with delight. “Oh, Handsome, I don’t doubt it,” he said, so smoothly that Bucky could feel his libido perking up. For fuck’s sake, he hadn’t figured just how much of a pain that thing would be, once it came back from the hole Hydra had buried it in.

He looked at the wound, which was exactly as deep as he’d figured so Jack was talking shit. Half-dried blood was clotted around it, and he was going to have to clean that off and disinfect it before he did anything else. He reached out to tilt Jack’s arm to the light so he could see it better, then abruptly realised the problem with this whole scenario.

He couldn’t stitch up a wound wearing his gloves, but he also couldn’t let Jack see his metal hand because details about his appearance were pretty sketchy in the press, but everyone and his wife knew that the big bad terrorist that had destroyed SHIELD headquarters had a metal arm. Fuck.

Jack noticed his hesitation and pulled back, twisting his arm so he could have a look. “I can do it myself, you know,” he said. “I’ve had practice doing this one-handed, you don’t need to worry.”

Bucky shook his head because that was bullshit, there was no way the guy was going to be able to give the wound the proper care it needed. He’d probably just slap a bandaid on it and call it a day.

“No, I’ll do it,” he said, then turned to go back through the first aid kit. Yes, there, he thought he’d seen them. A pair of surgical gloves. That would do in a pinch, although he’d have to be careful not to make it too obvious that there was hard metal instead of flesh under one of them.

He pulled the glove off his right hand, because that one was easy, then looked up at Jack’s face. He was watching way too closely for this and Bucky’s brain ran through several options for distracting him before Jack provided his own solution.

“Hey, it’s cool. I’m not going to judge.”

Bucky frowned at him, and Jack clarified. “Look, man, I’ve been around you enough to notice you always wear gloves and clearly have something you don’t want people staring at, but I’ve been around. I’ve seen a lot of injuries, including ones from war. You don’t have to worry about it.”

Jack thought he had some disfiguring injury that he didn’t want people gawping at. Bucky guessed that in some ways, he did.

He gave a shrug that hopefully conveyed deep emotional issues. “It’s not really a thing that I can use facts and logic to convince myself on.” He picked up the surgical gloves. “I’ll just go into the kitchen.”

“If you want,” said Jack. “Or I can just promise not to look.” He shut his eyes. “Whatever works for you.”

Bucky hesitated, then growled, “No peeking,” and turned so that his hands were hidden by his body as he stripped off his other leather glove and put on the surgical gloves. He flexed his hands a couple of times, checking the latex was thick enough to hide the metal plates. It wasn’t perfect, but he figured it was good enough for a guy who was mostly going to be distracted by the bullet hole in his arm.

“Okay,” he said, turning back, and Jack opened his eyes and grinned, eyes not ducking down to look at his hands for even a moment. Bucky took hold of Jack’s arm to keep it steady, and started cleaning up the blood on it. “Do me a favour, and just hold still and keep quiet while I do this,” he said. “It’s been a while, and I don’t wanna fuck it up.”

“Sure thing, hotlips,” said Jack easily, which Bucky sent him a glare for.

After that, Jack did keep quiet while Bucky concentrated on cleaning up his arm, putting a couple of stitches in, and then dressing it. When he was done, he sat back and inspected his handiwork, wondering if it was good enough for a regular guy who didn't have the advantage of whatever bullshit serum Hydra had shot him up with.

“Looks great, thanks,” said Jack, and Bucky let himself collapse back against the sofa. That created a space that the dog immediately leapt up into, pushing his nose at Jack. Jack grinned at him and ruffled his fur over his ears. “Good boy, Lucky.”

Lucky gave a happy wriggle and, fuck, this was the last thing Bucky needed to see. Jack all relaxed and shirtless in his home, grinning at his dog, was going to haunt his daydreams. 

He started packing up the first aid kit, then contemplated the surgical gloves for a moment, glancing over at Jack, who just shut his eyes then leaned forward until he was pressing his face into Lucky’s fur.

Bucky snapped off the gloves and pulled on his leather gloves, feeling something like a fraud over just how easy and accepting Jack was being about Bucky’s fake self-consciousness.

“You're going to need to give it some time to heal,” he said, once all the metal was covered up again. Jack moved back, opening his eyes. “Take a few days off.”

Jack made a face, but nodded. “I know. Can't rely on clients to take it easy with me.” He gave Bucky a speculative look.”Well, except you. You're not going to risk messing up your work.”

“I'm also not a client,” said Bucky, as much to himself as to Jack.

“You have been before, and you know you're welcome to be again,” said Jack, still stroking his dog while he gave Bucky a smouldering look. “Very welcome, Handsome.”

“You don't think that's a bad idea now we're,” and what even were they? Probably not friends, no matter that this was the closest thing to friendship that Bucky had had in decades. “Working together,” he finished. 

Jack snorted. “Nope,” he said. “C'mon, why should that matter? If I were a bartender, I'd serve my hot bouncer friend a drink when he was off-duty.”

Apparently, Jack thought they were friends too. That gave Bucky more of a warm glow than he'd have expected. 

“And I'd give him a staff discount,” added Jack, with a wink.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “It's a wonder you make any money with all these discounts.”

“Oh, they're only for you, sweetcheeks,” said Jack. He gave Lucky one last caress, then settled back with a sigh while Bucky was trying to work out if he wanted to object to that pet name or ignore it because he may not love that one, but he didn’t want to stop Jack using pet names at all. “Man, I always forget how exhausting being shot is.”

Bucky stared at him, completely distracted from his internal debate. “Do I want to know how many times you’ve been shot?”

“Nope,” said Jack, with a grin. “Hell, I’ve kinda lost count myself.”

Bucky shook his head despairingly. “Jesus,” he muttered, then actually took in the limp way Jack was sprawling, and the pale sheen on his skin.

“You need to drink something,” he said, getting up. “You got any orange juice or anything?”

“Uh,” said Jack, frowning. “I’ve got coffee?”

Yeah, that didn’t seem like a good idea. Bucky went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Two mostly-empty bottles of ketchup and half a cold pizza. Right.

“There’s beer!” called Jack, and Bucky sighed, shutting the fridge again and walking to the doorway. 

“I’m going shopping for you.”

“Aw, no, you don’t have to,” said Jack, starting to sit up.

Bucky just glared at him. “Have you seen the state of your kitchen? There’s hardly any point in me stitching you up if you’re just going to starve yourself to death.”

“I have pizza,” protested Jack.

Bucky rolled his eyes and headed for the front door. “There was a bodega on the corner, right? Do you want orange juice or apple juice?”

Jack gave up. “Orange is fine,” he said. “Don’t go overboard, yeah?”

Bucky ignored him.

The bodega was large enough for him to get enough food for a couple of days as well as juice. When he got back to Jack’s with two full bags, Jack let out a long sigh. “Oh, come on, man, that’s- at least let me pay you back for it.”

He’d sprawled out on the sofa while Bucky was out, with the dog happily nestled in his lap and some shitty action movie on the TV.

Bucky went into the kitchen and started unpacking. “It cost ten cents,” he said. “I got a military discount.”

He heard Jack’s amused snort as he opened the fridge. “Okay, fine, touché,” he said. “You’re gonna have to stop buying me coffee, though. This more than makes us even.”

Bucky poured out a glass of juice and took it through to him. “Think of it as sick pay,” he said. “If you were doing a regular job, you’d get sick pay. Especially if you got injured on the job.”

Jack took the glass with a smile of thanks. “I’m an independent contractor,” he pointed out. “I’d get jack shit.”

Bucky shrugged. “Your handsome bouncer friend talked management into it.” He looked at the dog, then pulled the treats he’d bought out of his pocket. “Am I okay to give him one of these?”

The grin that broke out over Jack’s face was a little like staring at the sun. “I knew you’d come around to loving dogs,” he said. “Go ahead. Maybe make him sit or something first?”

Lucky had perked up expectantly at the sight of the packet. Bucky eyed him for a moment, then looked back at Jack for a clue on what he was meant to be doing.

Jack sniggered, then gave Lucky a shove. “Down, Lucky. Get down.” Lucky jumped down off the sofa, still keeping his eyes firmly on Bucky’s hands. “Now just tell him to sit. Be firm but friendly.”

Friendly. Bucky wasn’t sure that was in his skillset anymore, but he guessed he could fake it. “Lucky, sit,” he said, and Lucky’s hindquarters immediately collapsed to the floor.

Jack started laughing as Bucky gave Lucky a treat. “Oh man, when I said ‘firm’, I didn’t mean like a drill sergeant on the first day of basic training.”

Bucky shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?” he said, then carefully reached out to give Lucky’s fur a ruffle. Lucky gave him a happily adoring look that made him wonder if he could get a dog, before he remembered that at some point his plan was to go over to Europe and take out Hydra’s bases there. That wasn’t exactly something you could drag a dog along for.

“I knew you just needed to get to know Lucky to become a dog person,” said Jack with more satisfaction than Bucky really felt was justified. 

Bucky just rolled his eyes and went to make him a sandwich.

****

Bucky stayed at Jack’s longer than he probably should have but not as long as he wanted to, then headed back to his usual spot, in case the Russians thought they’d scared him and Jack off and could have the run of the place.

The street was a lot quieter than it usually was. One of the skinny boys who hung out in a gang across from Jack’s usual place, who Bucky spent a lot of time telling himself couldn’t possibly be as young as they looked, sidled over to him once he was sat on the wall.

“Hey, is Flynn okay?”

Bucky frowned at him. “Flynn?”

The kid shrugged and gestured at his arm. “He looked like they got him pretty good.”

Right, Flynn must be another of Jack’s pseudonyms. “He’s fine,” he said, and the kid nodded, but didn’t look convinced. Bucky felt around for something to say that might knock the worried look off his face. “He’s more pissed than anything.”

The kid grinned. “Yeah, that seems right.”

Bucky glanced up and down the street again. “Where is everyone?”

The kid shrugged. “The girls didn’t know if you were going to come back tonight but they figured the Russians might, so most of them decided to take the rest of the night off. Plus the cops turned up and were trying to get people to talk about the shooting, which scared a few more off.”

That made sense. “And you’re not worried?” Bucky asked him.

The kid snorted. “Nah, I can hide from the cops easy, and the Russians only run girls.”

A car had pulled up next to his friends and he looked over, then glanced at Bucky. “Thanks for keeping an eye out for Flynn,” he said, taking a couple of steps away. “Seems like he could use it.”

He walked away before Bucky could find an answer that wasn’t whole-hearted agreement.

****

Bucky didn’t bother going to the library the next day and headed to the coffee shop early in the evening, thinking that if he was going to be the only one on guard, he should make sure his presence was noted. When he got halfway down Spitzer Street on his way there though, he found that his perch on the wall was already taken.

“Hey!” said Jack, waving at him. Bucky clenched his hands into fists and stormed across the road, barely bothering to check for traffic.

“What the hell?” he said. “You said you were going to take it easy.”

“I am,” said Jack. “Look, I’m sitting down and everything.” He waved a cup at Bucky. “And I got you coffee.”

His face was lit up with a grin that was making it difficult for Bucky to think clearly. He sighed and reached out for the cup. “You’re not working tonight,” he said, as firmly as he could.

“Nope,” agreed Jack. “I want those assholes to see me when they send their spies around though. Let them know it’s going to take more than a bullet to scare me off.”

Bucky let out another sigh, sitting down on the wall. “If they do turn up, let me do the fighting, yeah? I’m not stitching you back up if you rip yourself apart.”

“Sure you’re not,” said Jack, grinning at him over the lid of his cup. “Aw, don’t give me that look, I’ll be careful, I swear. I don’t really want to fuck myself up and have to take longer off work than a couple of days.”

Bucky nodded as he took a sip of his coffee, then a thought struck him. “Are you gonna be okay for money?”

A car went past at the same time and Jack stared at him, then shook his head slightly. “Sorry?”

Bucky repeated himself, pitching his voice louder.

Jack rolled his eyes. “All fine for a few days,” he said. “It’s been a good couple of weeks, I’ve got some stashed away.”

That was a relief, because Bucky didn’t know how he’d manage to talk Jack into accepting any financial help.

“So this is what it’s like being you,” said Jack, looking around at the street. “It’s a nice position. Good angles.”

Bucky shrugged. “I’d prefer to be up high,” he said, nodding at one of the rooftops. “It would be tricky getting down if something happened though, and I’m not sure that would go down well with the property owners.”

Jack snorted. “Sure, I bet anyone owning one of these shithole places right in the centre of Brooklyn’s red light district would get real upset about a shady character hanging out on it.”

“Who are you calling shady?” asked Bucky. “I’m just a guy looking for a quiet place to read.” He tapped the book in his pocket as proof.

“Oh sure,” said Jack. “Everyone knows bookworms favour sitting out in the cold under a streetlamp.”

Bucky shrugged. “It’s not so cold any more.”

“Maybe not if you’re wearing a coat,” said Jack. “You should try it in a skin-tight tee sometime.” Before Bucky could point out that Jack didn’t have to wear nothing but a t-shirt every night, because Bucky was pretty sure he’d look just as hot in a leather jacket, Jack snapped his fingers at his pocket. “Come on then, show me what you’re reading.”

Bucky pulled the book out and tossed it over into Jack’s lap. Jack raised his eyebrows. “The Collapse of the Soviet Union? Okay, that was a little heavier than I figured. Are you some kind of history nut, or something?”

_Or something,_ Bucky didn’t say. He wanted to know what had happened in the outside world between him going into deep-freeze with everyone around him completely convinced Soviet supremacy was only a matter of time, and being thawed out a few years later to find that the only Russian his new handlers knew were his words.

Of course, that was the only Russian they needed to know.

“Just trying to fill in some gaps,” he said. “Been a long time since school.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” said Jack. He flicked through a few pages, then stopped as it fell open at the bit of paper Bucky was using both as a bookmark and a place to make notes on stuff he wanted to look up next time he was on the computers at the library. Certain names kept coming up that rang bells in his head, but he couldn’t quite chase down why and he figured pictures might help.

“You know Russian?” asked Jack, holding the paper and its cyrillic letters up.

Bucky hadn’t really thought twice about using Russian to make notes, not when it made the names more familiar to him and occasionally jogged loose a memory or two.

“Are you saying you don’t?” asked Bucky rather than answer, holding his hand out for the book. “I heard you talking to that asshole the other day.”

Jack grinned. “I know a bit, but mostly only to swear in,” he said cheerfully, and let out a string of unbelievably filthy Russian phrases as he handed the book back.

Bucky blinked at him. “Jesus, did one of your clients teach you that?”

Jack’s face shuttered over. “Nah, old friend,” he said. “So, what other languages do you know?” he asked, in a very unsubtle change of topic.

Bucky let it go. There were a whole host of old friends he didn’t want to talk about either. “I think I’ve just about got the hang of English,” he said, which made Jack snort with amusement.

“So, no ASL then?” asked Jack. Bucky frowned at him and he rolled his eyes. “Sign language,” he clarified, and held his hands up, twisting them in a series of rapid shapes.

Bucky shook his head. “Sorry, man.”

Jack shrugged. “Just means I get to teach you,” he said, and moved his hands slower, in a series of gestures that looked weirdly pornographic. “That’s how to say what I said in Russian,” he said, and grinned at Bucky.

Bucky laughed. “Okay, so we’re starting with the important stuff?”

“Damn straight,” nodded Jack.

Bucky tucked the book back in his pocket and held his hands up, ready. “Okay, do it again.”

****

The next night, Jack was waiting again and his face lit up when Bucky used some of the signs he’d learnt the night before to greet him. It was more than worth the creeping feeling that hanging out all night with the guy, spending hours just chatting and laughing together in between keeping an eye out for mobsters, was doing nothing to help Bucky control his crush.

The third night, Jack was back on his corner.

“Don’t give me that look,” he said. “My arm’s healed enough, and we can’t all just slack off every night.”

Bucky clenched his jaw, but managed a nod. “Guess that means I’m getting the coffee again,” he said, and headed off to the coffee shop before he could vent his disappointment that he’d be sitting alone tonight as anger. The guy needed to make a living, after all.

When he brought the coffee back, Jack was already talking to a guy, leaning against the wall with one hip cocked out and a smirk on his face that Bucky wanted to wipe off his face with a hard kiss.

Jack wasn’t his to kiss, though. He took both coffees over to his wall then, when Jack glanced over at him with a half-shrug before taking the guy off in the direction of his storage unit, gave the second one to Katya.


	4. Chapter 4

The weather slowly warmed up and the days started being nice enough for Bucky to be able to head to the local park during the day, rather than camping out at the library or just wandering the streets, trying to shake his memories back into place.

There was a tree he liked to stretch out under with a book and get caught up on trying to unravel the problems in the Balkans, and just where exactly the handful of missions he could remember being sent out on in the nineties fitted into it. 

He was pulled out of a memory of a dark room and a garrotte by an excited bark and a furry shape leaping towards him. His hand was on the knife in his waistband before he realised it was Jack’s dog. 

“Oh, hey,” Bucky said, petting at it distractedly and looking around for Jack. 

When his eye fell on him, he almost didn’t recognise him. He was wearing an ancient pair of baggy sweatpants, frayed around the cuffs, and a purple hoodie that was large enough to hang over his hands.

It was a pretty far cry from his evening look of skin-tight jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt designed to show off his biceps, and the grin on his face as he saw Bucky was wide enough to be goofy and nothing at all like the sexy smirk he gave his clients. And yet, he was still the most attractive thing Bucky had ever seen. Seeing him relaxed and comfortable, not putting on any kind of show, made Bucky want to leap to his feet and take his head in his hands so that he could kiss him hard and long.

“Handsome!” said Jack, and Bucky couldn’t stop himself from flinching at the nickname. “And here I thought you only came out at night.”

“James,” said Bucky. “My name’s James.” He wanted to open his chest up and show Jack every part of himself, even the dark, blood-stained parts; it was ridiculous that Jack didn’t even know his name.

Jack went stock-still for a moment, then laughed. “Jack and John and James...are you sure? Maybe I should be going for Josh next. Or Jim.”

Bucky shook his head. “No, James is really my name.” Lucky was still pushing at him with his nose, so he pulled his eyes away from Jack’s face so he could pet him and distract himself from what a bad idea this was. There were hundreds of Jameses around, after all, and it wasn’t as if that was the name people knew him as. “I figured Lucky deserved to know it, as the only guy here not living under a fake name.”

Jack stared at him for a moment and then started laughing, dropping down to his knees to run a hand over Lucky’s back, fingers grazing against Bucky’s as they ruffled Lucky’s ears.

“Shows what you know,” he said. “He wasn’t always called Lucky, he’s basically in witness protection right now. I stole him from some asshole mafia guys, and they used to call him Arrow.”

Lucky turned around to him and gave an excited bark, then proceeded to try and cover Jack’s face in slobber, making Jack roll backwards onto the grass to try and get away.

“Jesus, everyone around here is living a lie,” said Bucky.

Jack pushed Lucky to one side and sat back up, rubbing at his face with his hoodie sleeve. “Not you anymore, James,” he said.

Fuck, Bucky hadn’t considered what it would be like to hear his real name being used for the first time in decades by the guy he was crushing on.

“Thanks for telling me,” added Jack, and the small, pleased smile he gave Bucky was enough to make his mouth go dry.

He shrugged. “No problem.”

“I’m probably still gonna call you Handsome half the time, though,” added Jack. “I mean, if the cap fits, right?”

Bucky rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t keep in a smile.

Jack settled down on the grass next to him and pulled out a ball for Lucky to chase, and they spent the next hour sitting there chatting, while Lucky ran around and then eventually flopped into Jack’s lap, tongue hanging out as he panted his exhaustion.

“I should go,” said Jack, not moving. “I need to have a nap before I shower and change for work.”

Bucky gave him a careful once over, then raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying that smelling like muddy dog doesn’t pull in the punters?”

Jack rolled his eyes, pushing Lucky off his lap so he could stand up. “What can I say? Guys who pick male sex workers up on street corners have weird tastes.” He pulled a leash out of his hoodie pocket and attached it to Lucky’s collar, then gave Bucky a wink. “I mean, look at you.”

Bucky gave him an unimpressed look. “As I remember it, you picked me up. I was just minding my own business.”

“You were stressed as hell,” corrected Jack. “You were wound so tight I thought you were gonna start punching walls. I did you a favour.”

Bucky opened his mouth to protest, then shut it and shrugged one shoulder instead. “Yeah, probably,” he said, because there didn’t seem any point in lying. Before Jack had talked him into that alleyway blowjob, he’d spent months being angry and stressed, thinking about nothing other than taking out as many Hydra bases as possible. And now, here he was, lying on the grass of a park, chatting to a guy he liked and playing with a dog.

“Don’t forget you can always have a repeat,” said Jack, with a wink. “Discounted rates.”

Bucky snorted. “I’m not taking any more military discounts from you,” he said. “Not when you’re the one who took a bullet most recently.”

“Not a military discount,” said Jack. “Friends and family.”

“You offer your family blowjobs?” asked Bucky, and Jack blinked and then laughed.

“Yeah, okay, maybe just friends, then,” he said. “I’ll see you later, James.”

“See you,” said Bucky, and settled back against the tree to watch him walk away, trying to control Lucky as he darted about under his feet. Fuck, he really liked the guy, and he really, really wanted another chance to feel his mouth on him.

It didn’t seem like he was ever likely to get it against his own mouth, so maybe he should just give in to Jack’s frequent offers, and feel it around his cock again instead.

****

He tried to settle back down into his book, but he couldn’t focus on the words when his mind was reminding him just what it had felt like to be sucked off by Jack. He ended up packing up and heading back home for his own shower, hoping that the cold water and shitty water pressure would knock the thoughts out of his head, but once he was naked, he couldn’t help running a hand over his chest, down his stomach and around his cock. Images from the two times he’d been with Jack mixed together with older memories from before the war, of guys he’d known well enough to exchange blowjobs.

From what he remembered, most of them had been his friends rather than anything more. If he’d been having casual sex with friends back then, what was stopping him now?

He suppressed the little voice pointing out that he hadn’t felt about any of those guys the way he felt about Jack, and squeezed his eyes shut as he came, images of Jack’s laughing grin dancing in front of his eyes.

Fuck. He wasn’t going to do this. He wasn’t, it was just a game he was playing with his imagination. Something to tease himself with until he got off. There was no way he was actually going to go there with Jack again.

That resolution lasted right up until he got to Spitzer Street and saw Jack, leaning down to talk to someone inside a car in a way that put the whole long length of his body on display, biceps and back muscles and ass and, just, Jesus.

Bucky never stood a chance.

He waited until the end of the night. He wasn’t about to leave the street unprotected while they both disappeared, and the delusional part of his brain wanted to wait until it felt like after-hours, so that he could pretend he was different from all the other guys Jack was with tonight, because he’d clocked off and was with Bucky because he wanted to be, not because Bucky was paying him.

And yeah, Bucky knew exactly how fucked up that was, but he could go back to repressing his feelings and being just friends with the guy tomorrow.

Friends. Jack was going to try and give him a discount again, and Bucky realised that for all his time watching the deals being made, he had no idea just how much Jack actually charged someone when he wasn’t playing games with them. He felt like he’d already taken enough from him, so next time the kid who had asked after Jack when he’d been shot looked over his way, Bucky beckoned him over.

“If you’re going to ask for a ride, you should know I charge danger money for poaching Flynn’s guy,” he said as soon as he was close enough, and Bucky felt himself flush up at the idea of being Jack’s in any way, even if the boy just meant that Jack had taken him on as a client first.

“Nah, that’s not it,” he said. “I just want to check something. What are his usual prices?”

The guy stared at him, then laughed. “You’re worried he stiffed you? Not a chance. Flynn’s got the most consistent pricing of anyone on the street, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard him vary from it. $50 for an alleyway suck, $60 to go back to his locker, $200 for a fuck, no barebacking.”

He reeled it off as if he’d heard it a hundred times, which Bucky guessed he must have, given how close he usually was to Jack’s spot.

Jesus, Jack's ‘military discount’ had been worth even more than Bucky had realised. Why the hell had he given a guy who looked like Bucky did the first time he walked down Spitzer Street a sixty percent discount? The second time he could kinda understand, given the rain, except he still hadn't worked out why Jack had slipped him back that twenty rather than just keep it.

“Is that about average?” he asked the kid, and got laughed at.

“How long have you been hanging out on this street and you don't know what average pricing is? Sure, it's typical, I guess. At the high end of the scale, but Flynn is hot as hell, he can get away with it.”

Bucky nodded. “Okay, thanks, kid.” His eyes went over to where Jack was still in place, but chatting to Julie rather than keeping an eye out for clients. He looked like he was done for the night.

“Connor,” corrected the kid. “And you're welcome.”

He didn't leave though, just stayed where he was until Bucky tore his eyes away from Jack to look at him. 

“I, uh, I heard you gave Julie fifty bucks when she was sick,” he said, and then gave the least convincing fake cough that Bucky had ever heard. 

Bucky rolled his eyes, but obligingly pulled out a twenty for him. Connor took it with a grin, then skipped back to his friends. 

Bucky hopped down from the wall and headed over to Jack, telling himself that he could still change his mind, that he was just going to say goodnight to Jack then head off home.

That lasted right up until Jack turned and grinned at him. “Hey, Handsome. How was your book?”

“Not as much fun as beating up Russian criminals,” said Bucky, and Jack laughed. “Hey, uh, are you done for the night?”

“Pretty much,” said Jack. “I was just waiting for Katya to leave, but she's gone home now. Why, you got plans?”

Bucky tried out a nonchalant shrug, but he wasn't sure he managed to hide his awkward nervousness. “I was going to ask if you'd mind one more client.”

Jack stared for a moment, then a grin burst over his face. “Yeah? Does the hot bouncer need some stress relief now he's off-duty? I can definitely help with that.”

He took a step closer and, keeping his eyes on Bucky’s the whole time, clearly checking it was okay, hooked his fingers into Bucky’s belt loops. Bucky felt himself tense at the touch, but made himself push it away. Jack was going to be touching him a lot more than that, and it was past time that Bucky got over flinching every time someone came close. He wasn’t surrounded by Hydra scientists any more.

“What sort of thing were you thinking?” asked Jack.

“I thought we might head to your locker again,” said Bucky, and it was easier than he’d thought it would be to let the words roll out smoothly, with a bit of a drawl that it took him a moment to realise was the thickening of his Brooklyn accent back to how it was when he was a young guy playing these kinds of games the first time around. “I really like having your mouth on me.”

“I kinda liked it too,” agreed Jack, and gave Bucky’s belt loops a tug. “We can definitely do that.”

Bucky held still rather than be pulled towards the locker. “One thing, though. I’m not letting you give me any bullshit discounts this time. I’ve got plenty of money, I don’t need your charity. You’re gonna let me give you $60, or I’m just gonna go home and jerk off instead.”

“Okay,” said Jack, “you know the hooker is meant to be the one pressing for more money, right?”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t sure you did,” said Bucky. “Seems like every time we’ve done this you’ve got worse at negotiating. I’m trying to give you some idea of how it’s meant to go.”

Jack rolled his eyes, but he was still grinning. “Sure, okay, fine,” he said. “$60, and I won’t quibble. Even though you’re doing me and every other worker on this street a favour every single night you spend hours hanging out in the cold.”

Bucky dismissed that. “That’s different. Beating assholes up is my hobby, and you don’t get paid for your hobbies. This is your job, you deserve to be paid for your time.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” said Jack. “I agreed, didn’t I?” He pulled on Bucky’s belt loops again, in the direction of his locker. “C’mon.”

“And no sticking it back in my pocket after,” said Bucky, holding firm.

“Sure,” said Jack, possibly too easily, but Bucky figured he knew where the guy lived now. He could always put an envelope through his mailbox if he needed to.

“Then what are we waiting for?” he said, and turned to start walking down the street, dragging Jack’s hand for a moment before he untangled his fingers from Bucky’s jeans.

Jack snorted with amusement but didn’t say anything as he followed him, walking slightly too close so he could nudge a shoulder against Bucky’s. He looked way too happy for a guy about to do something he got paid to do several times a night, but Bucky figured that was just the persona he’d decided to put on for Bucky. He wasn’t about to complain; the illusion that Jack would be this eager and excited about blowing him was one he was perfectly happy to have included in the price of the blowjob.

“You know,” said Jack as they walked, “beating up assholes is my hobby too. It’s cool we have shit in common.”

Bucky tried to think of anything else they had in common, and drew a blank. Jack was always so damn cheerful while Bucky still spent most of his time with a scowl engraved on his face; Jack was clearly devoted to his dog while Bucky wasn’t yet sure exactly where he fell on that one; Jack probably had some shit in his past given where he’d ended up, but Bucky was willing to bet that none of it came close to seventy years of brainwashing and murder.

After a long pause, he said, “That, and drinking too much coffee.”

“No such thing as too much coffee,” said Jack, pausing at the shutter to the locker units to open it. He rolled it open and glanced at Bucky, clearly remembering how he had frozen up before, but Bucky had come a long way since then. Plus, he realised with surprise as he followed Jack inside, he trusted Jack. Going into a place with only one exit with him didn’t feel like that much of a big deal after they’d fought together and Jack had let him stitch him up, not to mention all the hours spent chatting and buying each other coffee.

He stopped by Jack’s unit, then glanced at the one opposite when he heard a moan. He remembered what Jack had said about lots of the units being used by prostitutes, and realised this wasn’t going to be as private as when they’d come here in the middle of the pouring rain.

“How soundproof are these places?” he asked.

Jack snorted as he unlocked his unit. “Not perfect, but enough that you won’t notice the others unless someone is a screamer.”

Bucky made a face at the idea, and Jack laughed at him again as he opened the door and headed inside. Bucky followed him, shutting the door behind him and then just stopping, because how was this meant to go again?

Jack grinned at him, and Bucky realised he was keeping back and making sure Bucky had space, which was sweet but kinda redundant after weeks of getting to know each other. “How do you want this?” he asked. “Same as last time, sitting on the bed?”

Bucky considered, then nodded. “Yeah, that worked.” He settled on the edge of the bed, then eyed Jack. “Any chance of you taking your shirt off this time?”

“There’s every chance,” said Jack, grabbing the neck of his t-shirt off and pulling it off in a swift motion, then chucking it into the corner.

Bucky swallowed to try and hide just how much that had turned him on, then wondered why he’d bothered. It wasn’t like this whole scenario wasn’t already giving away how hot he found Jack, just with the fact that he wanted it.

And fuck, he really did want it.

Jack knelt down between Bucky’s legs, resting his hands on his thighs and grinning up at him. “Any other special requests?”

Bucky shook his head. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out for Jack, running his hands over his shoulders and up his neck, wishing like hell he could take his gloves off.

Fuck it, he could take one of them off, and that was the hand that would be able to feel Jack’s skin any way. He pulled back and pulled off his right glove, then set his hands back on Jack’s neck, running his thumbs over the line of his jaw. “Touching’s okay, right?”

Jack snorted. “James, you don’t need to worry. You can do pretty much anything you want, and if I’m not okay with it, I’ll tell you. Just don’t knock my aids out and we’re golden.”

He ran his hands up Bucky’s hands to his crotch, framing the erection that was pressing against his jeans for a moment before he started pulling down the zipper. Bucky took a careful breath, then ran his hands up into Jack’s hair, just holding on as Jack pulled Bucky’s cock free and shuffled in closer on his knees so that he could lick up the length of it.

“Fuck,” muttered Bucky as the sensation rocked over him. Shit, if he’d remembered just how good this felt, there was no way he’d have waited this long before coming back for another go.

Jack gave him a smug grin and Bucky was struck with a sudden, desperate desire to lean down and kiss him. He pushed it away, because that wasn’t what this was about.

“Do you mind if I give myself a bit more access?” said Jack, tugging down at the waistband of Bucky’s jeans.

“Definitely not,” said Bucky, letting go of him and helping pull his jeans down his hips. “In fact, fuck it, shift back a bit.”

Jack shuffled backwards and Bucky stood up so that he could drop his jeans and underwear to his ankles, where they got caught on his boots. He didn’t have the patience right now to start on laces so he could strip them entirely away, but he figured that was more than enough bare skin for Jack to run his hands over.

Jack knelt back on his heels and stared for a moment, then let out a huffing laugh. “Jesus, your thighs really are a piece of art. Anyone ever tell you that?”

Bucky rolled his eyes as he sat back down, trying to hide his pleasure at the compliment. “Not really something most people focus on.”

“Then they’re idiots,” said Jack, moving back in and running his hands over them. “I mean, look at the muscles in those, fuck.” He bent down and pressed a sucking kiss right at the join where Bucky’s thigh met his hip. “Yummy.”

Bucky rested his hand back on Jack’s head, gently scrunching his fingers through his hair. “If you say so,” he said.

“I really do,” said Jack, then let go of Bucky to pull a condom out of his back pocket, tearing the packet open and rolling it on Bucky with a swift motion that Bucky felt all down his cock.

He ran his hand down the back of Jack’s head to curl around the back of his neck as Jack leaned in and took Bucky in his mouth. He curled his metal hand around the edge of the bed to keep it out of the way where it wouldn’t get noticed or hurt anyone, and then let out a moan as Jack started sucking. Fuck, that was so good.

Jack pulled up a bit, teasing across the slit of Bucky’s cock with his tongue as his hands ran up to Bucky’s waist under his shirt, fingertips trailing over his skin in a way that made Bucky feel like he was lighting up with the sensations rushing through him. A moment later, Jack was moving away, leaning back and pulling off Bucky’s cock with a pop as he brought his hands back down to Bucky’s thighs. Bucky couldn’t hold in the soft noise of loss at losing the wet heat of Jack’s mouth.

“Sorry,” said Jack, “just needed to check before my hands wander too far because, damn, I really want to get to touch as much of you as possible, you are seriously smoking hot, but other than your arm, are there any no-go areas?”

Bucky shook his head, then reconsidered. “Just the shoulder as well,” he said, gesturing to where the metal was melded to his flesh, because there was no way anyone could run their hands over that and not realise there was something different about him.

“Awesome,” said Jack. “So I can get my hands on your abs?”

Bucky shrugged. “Sure, if you wa-” He was abruptly cut off when Jack sucked his cock down again, then trailed his hands up under Bucky’s shirt and over his skin.

Bucky took a deep breath, gripping at Jack’s shoulder and feeling the shift of powerful muscles, and then let it out as a slow moan. Fuck, this felt so good, this was more than worth sixty bucks. Hell, it was more than worth six hundred bucks, there was no way Jack should be working the street with skills like these, not when he could be some kinda high class escort, travelling around to fancy hotels rather than freezing his ass off every night on Spitzer Street.

Jack kept things slow and intense, intermingling spine-melting pressure and suction around Bucky’s cock with soft touches over his skin, and pulling away from his cock to run his mouth over his thighs, or up his stomach instead, pushing Bucky’s shirt up for better access before dipping his head back to worship Bucky’s cock again.

And that was what it felt like, an act of worship. Bucky felt treasured and appreciated and like he was actually worth something other than the efficiency of his fighting style for the first time in decades. It was all he could do to hold on to Jack’s shoulder and try to keep the stream of panting moans that fell from his mouth to a minimal level, and to firmly stop himself from including any words in there with them, because the last thing Jack needed was to know just how Bucky felt about him.

When he came, it was with Jack swallowing him down so deeply that Bucky could feel his throat closing around his cock. He let out a groan that was all he could manage as his mind blanked out with pleasure, then he slumped back, letting go of Jack so that he could lean against the wall, trying to catch his breath. Fuck, he could fight his way through a Hydra base without getting out of breath, how was Jack’s mouth able to leave him gasping for air?

Jack lifted his head, wiping at his mouth and giving Bucky an accomplished grin. “How was that?”

“Pretty spectacular,” said Bucky, honestly. Jack sat back, giving Bucky a view of his body that he couldn’t resist running his eyes down, taking in the defined lines of Jack’s pecs and the flex of his abs as he recovered his own breath, and the hard line of the erection in his jeans. God, Bucky wanted to be able to offer to help him with that, but he was all too aware that he’d had everything he was paying for, and needed to go back to being Jack’s friend now. 

Jack glanced down and gave a rueful shrug, adjusting himself. “I told you I got turned on by being awesome at things, right? Just ignore it.” 

He took the condom off Bucky and knotted it up, then leaned back to put it in the trash. Bucky couldn’t tear his eyes off Jack’s cock, at how his tight pants made it obvious just how thick it was. He tried to imagine what it would feel like in his mouth, but his memories of giving blowjobs from before the War were too hazy for him to properly fill in the details. 

“Can I pay more not to ignore it?” he asked, because his brain was still running at half-speed, and apparently that meant he didn’t stop to really think things through before he said them.

Jack blinked, then laughed. “I mean, if that’s what you want,” he said. “There’s no obligation, though.”

Bucky shook his head. “No obligation,” he agreed. “Just, you might have figured that it’s been a while since I did any of this stuff.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that,” said Jack.

“It was before I joined the Army,” said Bucky slowly, taking the time to make sure that what was coming out of his mouth wasn’t going to get him in trouble. “Before all the shit happened that made me into a different guy. I want to see if I can still remember how to suck someone off right.” That sounded pretty generic as an experience of getting out of the Army with far more scars than when you went in. No mention of decades of torture, so he was probably good.

Jack let out a breath, then nodded. “An extra twenty.”

“Forty,” said Bucky, almost automatically, because he figured that just doubling any price Jack gave him was probably the best bet. “Makes it an even hundred.”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, okay,” he agreed, standing up. “How do you want me?”

_Any way I can get you,_ thought Bucky, then made himself sit up and actually consider it. He didn’t really want to be on his knees, not even for Jack, because some of his Hydra handlers had taken too much pleasure in making him wait for orders like that, submissive and vulnerable.

He definitely wanted Jack naked, as well. Jack had got his hands all over Bucky, it was only fair that he get to return the favour. He got up off the bed, pulling up his pants and tucking his cock away, but leaving the zipper undone for now.

He gestured at the bed. “Strip off and spread out for me.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” said Jack, starting to undo his jeans.

“Don’t call me sir, I work for a living,” said Bucky absently, too focused on exactly what was being revealed to realise what he was saying as Jack pulled down his jeans and, yeah, Bucky probably could have guessed that Jack didn’t wear underwear, but seeing the proof was a very different thing. Fuck, Jack really was unbelievably hot and his cock was even prettier than Bucky had imagined.

Jack started laughing as he kicked off his shoes and socks and tossed the jeans after them. “Sorry, Sergeant.”

Bucky couldn’t hold in a full-body flinch at that, but luckily Jack was climbing onto the bed and didn’t see it. Fuck, when had he last been called sergeant? And not just sarcastically, by Zola and his torturers in the early days?

“Don’t call me that,” he growled, and Jack glanced over as he spread himself out.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to hit any sore spots.”

Bucky took a deep breath and pushed all that aside, because he was damned if he was going to let old memories distract him from the sight of Jack spread out for him, naked body completely on display as he waited for Bucky to come and lick all over his skin.

“It’s fine,” Bucky said, moving forward to kneel on the bed, in the space that Jack obligingly made for him by spreading his legs. God, if he hadn’t just come like a freight train, he’d be getting hard again just from the sight in front of him.

He touched his fingers to Jack’s knees and pressed them a little further apart so that he could move further up the bed without feeling like he was surrounded. “Don’t touch my head,” he said, thinking about the way Hydra’s chair had enclosed his head so that he could barely move it. “Don’t do anything that restrains me.”

“Sure thing,” said Jack, reaching under the pillow and pulling out a condom. He held it out to Bucky. “Do you want to do the honours?”

What Bucky really wanted was to tell him to put it away so that he could actually taste Jack and not just latex, but he didn’t think there was a chance in hell that Jack would go for that. Not when Bucky couldn’t explain just how immune to everything, including STIs, Hydra had made him. Connor had said Jack didn’t do barebacking and there were apparently stashes of condoms everywhere, so this didn’t seem like something Jack compromised on.

Bucky took the condom and opened it, only fumbling slightly with his gloved hand. That was going to be irritating to deal with, but a lot less irritating than having to grab his stuff and go on the run again because he’d let a hooker work out he was an internationally-wanted criminal. He had a feeling the usual refusal of everyone on Spitzer Street to talk to or get involved with the cops in any way would be waived in the face of the Winter Soldier’s lengthy list of crimes.

Jack was already close to fully hard as Bucky eyed his erection, then took a deep breath before reaching out to take hold of it and roll the condom on. Jack let out a gentle sigh and his hips twitched, but he didn’t move much beyond that. Bucky couldn’t stop himself from rubbing his ungloved hand over Jack’s stomach so that he could feel him, warm and real, unlike all the fantasies he’d had.

“Any requests?” he asked, then told himself that it was a legitimate question and not a stalling tactic. As much as he wanted this, he couldn’t shake the tense anxiety that he wasn’t going to be able to manage it, or that he’d end up hurting Jack, like he’d hurt everyone else he’d got this close to in the last seventy years. Fuck, and Jack had no idea that he was letting a killer touch him, that the hand resting on his stomach, feeling the calm rhythm of his breathing, had snapped necks and butchered children.

“Nah, this is your show,” said Jack. “Whatever you do will be fine. Just, you know. No lasting marks, and I’m not really into pain, so if you want me to come, that’s not a good method. Plus, there’s a surcharge.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” said Bucky, and as he heard himself say it, he realised just how true it was. Screw Hydra and all the shit they had got him to do. The last thing he was ever going to do was hurt Jack.

“Cool,” said Jack, and he lifted his hands and took a grip on the top of the bed above his head. “Go to town, then.”

His new position made his biceps bulge and Bucky had to take a moment to just really appreciate the sight in front of him, then he leaned down and pressed his mouth to the ridge of muscle that cut across Jack’s pelvis, because he wasn’t entirely sure where to start but he wanted to taste that pretty fucking badly.

He ran his tongue over the salt of Jack’s skin and just like that, a hundred memories of doing this before resurfaced. He knew how to do this, and he knew how to do this really, really well, if the way he remembered guys shaking apart underneath him was accurate.

Fuck, he really wanted to see Jack coming apart like that.

Jack let out a quiet sigh and it spurred Bucky on to move in toward his cock, tasting his skin as he went, and then wrapping his hand around it and gently pumping, which made Jack pull in a sharp breath.

Bucky liked the sound of that, and he wondered what other noises he could coax out of Jack.

“Are you noisy in bed?” he asked.

Jack lifted his head to grin down at him. “Depends what you want, sweetheart.”

Bucky frowned, and then squeezed tighter at Jack’s cock as a punishment for that. “No, I need you to be honest about this, no acting. How am I meant to work out what I’m doing if I can’t trust your reactions?”

“Fair enough,” said Jack, and he sounded far more breathless than Bucky would have thought he’d be when he’d done so little. “Then I guess I’m kinda medium. I mean, I’m not a screamer or anything, but if I’m not concentrating, I tend to start babbling.”

Bucky liked the sound of that. He rewarded Jack for his honesty by jerking him off a couple of times, then told himself to stop procrastinating and leaned in, taking the head of Jack’s dick into his mouth and trying out a gentle suck.

The groan Jack gave sounded like it had been pulled from the bottom of his lungs. Fuck, Bucky wanted to hear more of that. A lot more. He pulled Jack’s cock further into his mouth, leaning down further and setting his gloved hand on Jack’s hip to steady himself, and then started to run through everything he remembered from before, all the little tricks that he couldn’t quite remember learning, but that were coming back to him as if they’d never been wiped away from his brain by electricity and pain.

“Oh shit,” muttered Jack. “James, I thought you said you were out of practice at this. Shit, I’m not going to last long.”

Bucky couldn’t hold in a shudder at the sound of his name falling from Jack’s mouth in that rough, aroused tone. Fuck, he was getting hard again.

Jack had stopped talking in favour of drawing in deep, heavy breaths, so Bucky redoubled his efforts, slowly sinking his mouth down further and further, testing to see how far was too far. Jack started mumbling, “Oh fuck, oh fuck,” under his breath, which Bucky took as a good sign, and he swallowed down a little more, pressing his tongue against the length of Jack’s shaft as his jaw began to ache in an unexpectedly familiar way.

Fuck, this felt good. Bucky could feel Jack starting to shake and his babbling had stopped being entirely coherent, and all he wanted was more of every part of this. Shit, this was worth so much more than forty bucks. This was worth everything.

“I’m gonna-” said Jack in a warning tone, but he was too late, already starting to come before he’d got to the end of the sentence. “Oh, _fuck_ ,” he bit out, and Bucky pulled back until his mouth was only covering the head of Jack’s cock so that he could look up and watch Jack’s face, eyes squeezed tight and hands clinging onto the edge of the bed so tightly that every muscle in his arms was highlighted.

Shit, Bucky was definitely hard again, erection trapped between his half-open jeans and his belly. He pulled away from Jack, keeping one hand on his hip and gently rubbing over it as Jack blinked his eyes open and gave him a lopsided grin.

“Okay, you’re not rusty at all. Seriously, you don’t need to worry.”

Bucky grinned at him, then sat up and moved back, because what he really, really wanted was to stretch out over him, pressing their bodies together and putting his mouth in range to capture Jack’s.

He hadn’t paid for that, though.

He readjusted himself in his pants, without much success given that they were still hanging open, which framed his erection all too well. He needed to wait until it went down a bit before he did the zipper up.

Or…

Jack hadn’t moved from his relaxed sprawl, other than to fold his arms under his head rather than leave them stretched over his head. Bucky eyed the lines of his naked body, thinking about how he’d been the one to relax him that much, and asked, “Is it gonna cost extra if I jerk off now?”

Jack snorted. “Not unless you want me to help somehow,” he said. “Your cock, your hand, nothing to do with me.”

Bucky gave him a pointed look, then let his eyes rove over his body with obvious appreciation. “Oh, you’ll be helping a bit.”

Jack grinned, then waved a vague hand at himself. “The view’s free.”

He shifted to reach under the pillow, pulling out a packet of tissues, and chucked them at Bucky, then removed his condom and knotted it up. He tossed it in the direction of the bin without sitting up to properly look where it was. To Bucky’s surprise, it sailed cleanly in.

“Nice shot.”

Jack let out a tired, bitter laugh. “Yeah,” he agreed, then settled his arms back under his head. “You okay with me watching?”

Bucky snorted, pulling his jeans down enough to pull his cock out. “Why the hell would I mind that?”

He took a firm grip, already knowing that this wasn’t going to take a whole lot, not with the visual stimulation of Jack lain out for him, along with the way he could still feel the weight of Jack’s cock on his tongue, and the ache of his jaw, and the sense memory of just how smooth Jack’s skin had been under his finger tips.

Fuck, he wished they hadn’t had to bother with condoms so that he’d got to taste Jack as well. He tightened his grip and sped up his strokes, thinking about the way Jack’s cock had pulsed under his tongue and wondering how it would have tasted to have him release in his mouth, to be able to swallow it down and know that he had a small part of Jack inside him.

“You look like you’re getting close,” said Jack. “What are you thinking about? The way my mouth felt swallowing you down? Or the way your mouth felt when you were swallowing me down? Or are you picturing what else we could be doing? You liked the idea of fucking me before, you know we could do that some time.”

Bucky couldn’t stop himself from moaning at the idea, readjusting his grip as he pictured that. Jack would feel so good underneath him, legs wrapped around Bucky’s waist as he pushed into him, head tipped back with pleasure, just like it had been when he’d come.

Bucky came thinking about it, eyes locked on Jack’s as he spurted over his hand.

He probably should have got a tissue out from the pack before this point, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about the mess as he relaxed back against the wall, catching his breath with his hand curled protectively around his cock.

Jack was still watching, staring at him as if Bucky were worth looking at, mostly clothed and covered in his own come. Not for the first time, Bucky considered that his acting skills must really drive his tips up.

“How you feeling?” asked Jack, once Bucky had had a few moments to relax.

“Pretty good,” said Bucky, and then, because he needed to remind himself that this was a business transaction and nothing more, “Worth every penny.”

Jack snorted, pulling himself up to a sitting position but not moving further than leaning against the wall. “I’m all about the customer satisfaction,” he said, with a sleazy wink.

Bucky rolled his eyes, then fumbled with the tissues and cleaned himself up so that he could tuck his cock away and finally do up his jeans. “Well, if you ever need anyone to write you a reference.”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, I’m good. My references are mostly just flexing.” He raised an arm and flexed his bicep as a demonstration, which threatened to distract Bucky just as he tossed the tissue at the trash, but he’d spent too many decades hitting everything he aimed for or being punished to miss.

Jack followed the shot with his eyes, and then grinned at him. “Nice.”

Bucky just shrugged, wondering how long was too long to stay hanging out after paying for sex. He really didn’t want to move right now, not when staying in place meant getting to look at Jack, who hadn’t bothered covering up at all.

“Hey,” said Jack, after a minute or two of calm silence had passed. He poked at Bucky’s leg with his toe. “How are you feeling? Dealing okay with the, I don’t know, intimacy or whatever? You said you wanted to see how okay you were with this stuff now, right?”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky, because that had been part of the reason. “Guess I’m doing better than I thought,” he said, because he hadn’t had nearly as much panic over being close to someone, and none of the shadows Hydra had left in his mind were looming large. In fact, they seemed to have fled to the very edges, cast out by the sunshine of Jack’s post-coital smile.

And now Bucky was getting all poetic, fuck. Jack really was doing a number on him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Still okay with having a friend as a client?”

“Definitely,” said Jack. “You know you’re unfairly hot, and incredible with your mouth, right? I kinda feel like I should be paying you.” 

Bucky rolled his eyes at that bit of nonsense. “And you should be writing fiction.”

Jack let out a short sigh. “Okay, you’re not ready for compliments yet.” He eyed Bucky with a look that was more serious than what Bucky was used to from him. “You are doing a lot better than you were, though. You must know how much of what just happened you wouldn’t have been okay with when I first met you, when you were so damn twitchy I kinda thought you were going to have a panic attack just from being touched. You go to the VA every day, right? Have they told you how great your progress is?”

Bucky frowned at him. “I don’t go to the VA.”

Jack blinked. “Oh, sorry. I just figured…” He made a face, then shrugged. “Sorry. Assumptions. You go off somewhere every day, at different times and for different amounts of time, and I just figured you were going to the VA, and they were giving you some kinda therapy.”

“I go to the library,” said Bucky. He hadn’t even considered going to the VA, although he guessed it would have made sense if he were a normal vet and not one who had skipped through seventy years as a brainwashed zombie assassin. “VA wouldn’t know where to start with me,” he muttered.

“You’d be surprised,” said Jack. “They see a lot of hard shit.”

Bucky shook his head, but didn’t bother trying to explain that nothing the VA had seen would come close to him. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about. I thought you said you weren’t a veteran.”

Jack raised one shoulder. “I’ve known some,” he said, vaguely. “I’ve been around guys who have seen combat.”

“Are they the ones who taught you to fight?” asked Bucky.

Jack didn’t reply. He just gave Bucky a tight smile that made it clear further details weren’t going to be forthcoming.

Bucky sighed. “Okay, fine,” he grumbled. “Keep your damn secrets.”

“That’s kinda rich coming from you,” said Jack.

Bucky levelled the best glare he could manage when he was feeling so relaxed at him. “You realise I told you my actual name while everyone I meet calls you something different, right?”

Jack considered that. “Yeah, okay, fair,” he said. “Tell you what, ask me a question, and I’ll answer it truthfully.” Bucky opened his mouth, and Jack held up a hand. “But not my name. Or how I learned to fight.”

Bucky snorted and shook his head. “Okay,” he said, slowly, mind whirling. “How about this, then? How come you’re making a living standing on a street corner? Cuz, it doesn’t seem like you’re in debt, or an addict, or illegal, and it seems like you’d be able to get a regular job if you wanted.”

Jack let out a sigh, tipping his head back against the wall and staring at the ceiling. “Man, you don’t pull your punches,” he muttered.

“You don’t have to answer,” Bucky said. “You’re the one that offered.”

Jack shook his head. “No, it’s-” He paused, pressing his lips together, then sighed. “Okay, so, I used to do something else, and I thought I was helping people with it. Then something happened, and I hurt a lot of people, some of them friends. I kinda needed to get out for a bit, and then-” He stopped and clenched his jaw. “Some stuff came out,” he said in short, clipped words. “About my former employers. It turned out I’d hurt more people than I thought, the whole time I was working for them. I get being a hooker isn’t great, but at least doing this, I know I’m only ever making people happy. I’m giving out pleasure, and there’s no way anyone can twist that.”

Bucky considered that. He guessed he could see the attraction. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “I guess you definitely made me pretty happy tonight.”

Jack grinned at him. “Exactly,” he said, and pointed his fingers at him, shaped as if they were guns.

“I guess I shouldn’t forget this,” said Bucky, and reached into his pocket to pull out his wallet. He pulled out a hundred, then paused and looked at Jack. “Do tips count as charity?”

“Nah,” said Jack, holding a hand out for the money, “but you don’t need to bother. It’s not like any of it was a hardship.”

Bucky resolutely ignored him, and pulled out another fifty before handing it over. Jack sighed, but took it without a word. He ran a hand through his hair, then lazily stretched.

“Guess I should head back so I can take Lucky out,” he said, moving around and reaching for his pants. “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

“Right,” agreed Bucky, taking that as his cue and standing up. His whole body felt weirdly loose in a way he didn’t think it had since before Hydra.

Fuck, he was going to end up paying for this again. There was no way he could leave it now and never have this again, even if it was only a shadow of what he really wanted with Jack.

This was probably all kinds of unhealthy, but Bucky couldn’t bring himself to worry about that, not now when he was all relaxed from two orgasms, and from getting to see Jack come apart underneath his touch.


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky spent most of the next day reminding himself to act normally when he saw Jack again, but it turned out that was easy enough when Jack reacted just as he always did, his face lighting up at the sight of coffee as he stepped closer to Bucky to take hold of it.

Of course, acting normally around Jack apparently meant having his heart light up like a firework, so it didn’t actually do much to help Bucky not feel like an idiot.

“How was the library?” asked Jack, blowing on the coffee to cool it briefly before gulping down enough that he really should have burnt his throat.

Bucky pulled out his latest book to show him. “I’m getting to the modern end of the history shelves. Might have to find a different section to work through soon.”

He’d got out _The Battle of New York and the Formation of the Avengers_ mostly because he’d caught sight of Steve’s face on the cover and then realised he didn’t actually know that much about how Steve had ended up living in a tower with Howard’s kid and a bunch of super-powered guys, but he figured also having some context on the scars that were still visible around the city couldn’t hurt.

Jack took one look at the book and flinched. He tried to cover it by taking another gulp of coffee, but the smile had disappeared from his eyes. Bucky tucked the book away but it seemed like the damage was already done.

“Jesus, are they already writing history books about that?” muttered Jack.

Bucky shrugged. “It’s been a few years.” He hesitated then asked, as carefully as he could because he wasn’t sure they were close enough for this, “Were you here when it all went down?”

Jack stared down into his coffee and for a long while, Bucky thought he wasn’t going to answer at all, then he said, tiredly, “I was in New York then,” and took another gulp of coffee.

Bucky took a hint, and god knew there were enough things in his past that he didn’t want people poking at, so he forced himself to let it go.

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask. When do I get to see your dog again?”

It worked like a treat. All the shadows were pushed off Jack’s face in favour of the beaming grin that a mention of his dog always prompted. “Whenever you like. Me and Lucky are in the park pretty much every morning, you’re always welcome to join us.”

Well, that guaranteed that Bucky was going to be in the park every damn day. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Awesome,” said Jack, and his dog-inspired grin somehow even managed to widen. Bucky gave him a nod, then turned to hurry off to his perch.

For the first time, he started to wonder about just how happy Jack always seemed to be to spend time with him. Was that normal for two guys being friends in this day and age? Bucky couldn’t remember Steve ever being that pleased to hang out with him.

_He probably would be if you contacted him today,_ whispered an insidious voice in the back of Bucky’s head that he firmly ignored in favour of cracking open his book. He had very good reasons for not hanging out with Steve but there was absolutely no reason for him not to go hang out with Jack and pet his dog.

He barely got through the first chapter of the book before Jack came over to him. A guy in a car had pulled up and they’d had a long chat through the window while Bucky had tried to pretend he wasn’t watching over the top of his book, and then, in a break from the norm of Jack jumping in the car and disappearing for an hour, Jack had jogged down the street to Bucky while the car slowly followed him down and waited at the kerb. 

“Hey, you’re going to be here all night, right?” asked Jack as soon as he was close enough to Bucky.

“Yeah,” said Bucky. “Like every night. What’s going on?”

Jack glanced back at the car. “One of my regulars has had a bit of a windfall and wants to spend it on getting a full night with me,” he said. “It’s a lot of cash, but I don’t want to leave the street with no one watching.”

Bucky very purposefully didn’t look at the car and the lucky asshole who was going to get to spend hours and hours in bed with Jack. This was a good thing for Jack, a chance to earn a lot in one go. He had to remember that they were friends, and being a dick about Jack’s job was a surefire way to fuck that up.

“I’ll be watching,” he said. “I swear, I won’t leave until the sun comes up.”

“Thanks,” said Jack. “You’re the best.” He gave a double thumbs up, then turned to jog over to the car and jump into the passenger seat.

Bucky watched the car drive off and took a deep breath, keeping himself from clenching his hands around the book with sheer force of will. It took him a few moments to realise Julie was giving him a concerned look, which Bucky returned with a glare before looking back down at the page. 

It didn’t put her off. She walked over. “You know, nothing about this street is anything like _Pretty Woman_.”

Bucky stared at her. He had no idea what that was but from the familiar way she said it, he probably should. “Some of the women are pretty enough,” he said, rather than try and guess what his response should be.

She snorted. “And some of the men,” she said, giving him a pointed look that Bucky did his best to ignore. “Look, you’re a good guy. We all appreciate you being here, but if you’re going to get all dramatic about Ronin doing his job…”

“I’m not,” interrupted Bucky. “Why the hell would I? I haven’t so far.”

“No,” she agreed. “Just keep it like that.”

Fuck, Bucky must be getting way too obvious about his crush. Maybe he should rethink his plan to go to the park tomorrow.

Or maybe he should take along more dog treats, and make it seem like his crush was all on getting to play with the dog, and nothing to do with Jack. He could pull that off, right?

His train of thought and Julie both got distracted when a dark van and two cars came screeching around the corner, filled with Russian thugs.

“Oh shit!” swore Julie as Bucky dropped his book and jumped to his feet.

“Get everyone off the street,” he said as the vehicles pulled up and the bastards started spilling out, grabbing the nearest girls. They were roughing them up as much as they were trying to get them in the van, and like fuck was Bucky going to stand for that.

He was only distantly aware of the screams as he pulled his gun out, rushing forward as he shot off a couple of bullets that went wide because he didn’t want to risk hitting any of the women. He pulled some girl in a halterneck top out of a thug’s grip and smashed him with the butt of his gun, then turned to smash his fist into the next one as she ran for it.

The women were all trying to get away, yanking off impractical shoes so that they could scatter, but he was all too aware that there was only the one of him to protect them all, and far too many thugs.

“Take that fucker out!” Vassily yelled in Russian, because of course that asshole was directing operations again, and the thugs all turned to focus on Bucky.

Which was exactly what Bucky wanted. As long as they were concentrating on him, they were giving the women a chance to disappear. “Come on then, assholes,” he yelled back in the same language, then gave himself over entirely to the rhythm of the fight, losing himself in the violence just as he had when Hydra had had their claws in his brain. He kicked and punched and occasionally had a moment clear in which to shoot, but the gun wasn’t the most useful weapon in this kind of melee, so he fought his way to a moment to breathe and shoved it away, grabbing out a knife instead.

That was far more useful. These guys were all substandard street rats, trained to be intimidating to prostitutes and their clients, but few of them knew how to fight well enough to take on someone who had as much combat training as Bucky did. He carved his way through them until he was face-to-face with Vassily.

Vassily’s face looked kinda lopsided, Bucky noticed, and there was a nasty scar still healing where he’d punched him the first time they met. “I’m going to fuck you up,” Vassily growled in English, as if he had a hope in hell of getting close to hurting Bucky.

Bucky just tightened his jaw and went for him, blocking his obviously-telegraphed punch with his metal arm then grabbing him by the throat and lifting him off the ground.

Vassily didn’t seem to know what to do, wriggling like a caught fish and pulling uselessly at Bucky’s fingers.

“You and your thugs are going to fuck off,” growled Bucky, “and you’re not going to come back. Not if you know what’s good for you.”

“Fuck. You,” Vassily managed in a breathless growl. Bucky just squeezed his fingers tighter, then let go, dropping Vassily to the ground in a heap of gasping patheticness. As much as he wanted to kill the asshole, he was meant to be a good guy now.

“This street is protected,” he said in Russian, looking around at the rest of the thugs, half of whom were nursing injuries while the others hovered awkwardly, watching Vassily for a sign of what they should do. “If you’re not all gone in three minutes, I will kill you all.” He adjusted his grip on the knife in a meaningfully aggressive manner.

One of the thugs raised a gun and took a shot at him but Bucky was quicker, raising his metal hand so that it bounced uselessly off.

That was enough to tip the scales in his favour. They all scrambled up, a few of them swearing about mutants and enhanced humans as they shoved their injured back into the cars. Someone scooped Vassily up but he shook them off, glaring at Bucky for a long moment before turning to get in the van.

“Next time, we need to get him off the street as well,” he said to someone as he climbed in, then the doors were being slammed, cutting off whatever the response had been.

Bucky’s blood went cold as the vehicles pulled away and drove off. _Get him off the street as well_. 

Oh god, Jack.

“You okay?” asked a woman, and Bucky glanced around and recognised her as the one who had pulled a knife last time the Russians had tried this. She was holding it again now, but she looked a lot less confident than she had before. “That got kinda brutal.”

Bucky shook his head. “They deliberately lured Jack away,” he said, because that was all he could think about.

“Jack?”

Bucky shook his head impatiently. “Ronin, Flynn, whatever the fuck else he’s calling himself.”

Her face cleared of confusion. “Oh, Rob.”

Bucky added it to his mental list of Jack’s pseudonyms. “Do you know where the guy he went with lives?” he asked. “Or if they went to the motel?”

She shook her head as Katya said, timidly, “You’re not going to leave, are you?”

Bucky looked around and realised that a crowd of women had gathered, some of them dishevelled and bruised from the Russians’ attack. Fuck, he couldn’t leave them unprotected.

Oh god, which meant he couldn’t try to hunt down Jack and make sure he was okay. He had to just stay here and trust that Jack’s unexpectedly good fighting skills were enough to protect him if the Russians had set him up.

“No, I’ll be here all night,” he said, remembering his promise. “Until the sun comes up.”

The women relaxed. “Okay, then I’m staying,” said the woman with the knife, tucking it away. She looked around. “I’m not letting those assholes chase me off.”

“Sonya’s right,” said another woman. “This is our patch and I’m not running away, not even for one night.”

There were more determined nods, then they all started moving away, back to their usual places.

Bucky clenched his hands into fists tight enough to make the leather of his gloves creak. He had too many images of what could be happening to Jack right now running through his head, fuelled by the memories of all bloodstained ambushes he’d been part of over the years.

“He’ll be okay,” said Julie, lingering back after the others had gone. “I know the guy he went with, and he’s never hurt Jack.”

Bucky shook his head. “He got an unexpected windfall,” he said. “Enough to pay for a whole night with Jack. Where do you think that money came from?”

Julie was silent for a moment, then sighed. “He’s been coming by for a year or two. I don’t think he’d sign up for Jack to be hurt.”

Bucky wasn’t nearly so trusting. In his experience, most people would betray almost anyone if the price was right.

There was nothing he could do about it now. He’d promised to stay on Spitzer Street for the night, and he wouldn’t know where to find Jack anyway. He made his way back to his usual spot on the wall, picking up his book and putting it in his pocket, because there was no way he’d be able to concentrate on reading it now.

Fuck these Russian assholes. Bucky was done with playing this game by their rules. He and Jack needed a plan that was more than just sitting around waiting for them to turn up. They needed to go on the offensive, and make it clear that coming anywhere near Spitzer Street wasn’t on the cards any more.

****

The night seemed to last forever. By the time the sky started to lighten with dawn and most of the sex workers had headed off home, Bucky was sure he’d gone through another few decades of torture.

The second he could justifiably tell himself that he’d kept his word and stayed until the sun came up, he was moving. He strode down the street, trying not to break into a jog, heading for Jack’s apartment.

The windows were all dark when he got there and there was no answer on the buzzer. He climbed up the fire escape to make sure Jack wasn’t passed out inside with his hearing aids off, but the only sign of life was Lucky, stretched out on the sofa. Bucky clenched a tight hand around the fire escape railing and told himself that Jack was probably still with the client and would be back soon, but he couldn’t make himself believe it. It would fit too well with the pattern of the rest of his life if he lost Jack now.

He stayed on the fire escape, where he had a good view of the rest of the street and the front door to Jack’s building, and tried to calm himself down into the watchful mode that he’d developed as a sniper. It was harder than it had ever been to find that calm place inside himself, and every person who came around the corner and wasn’t Jack made it harder.

It was a good couple of hours before Jack finally appeared, sauntering around the corner with a cup of coffee in his hand as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Bucky’s heart started pumping double-time and he leapt up, jumping straight down from the fire escape without stopping to think how that would look.

Jack reacted to the sudden movement by jumping back and dropping his coffee. “Jesus fucking Christ!” he swore. “James! You scared the crap out of me. What the fuck are you doing?” He glanced up at the fire escape, then back at Bucky. “Jesus, are you okay? That’s a long way to jump.”

Bucky ignored that. “Are you okay?” he asked. “That asshole didn’t hurt you?”

“What?” asked Jack, then he made a face. “Oh Jesus, James, please tell me you’re not getting possessive, that’s-”

“That asshole was paid by the Russians,” Bucky interrupted. “They wanted you out of the way, then they turned up in force.”

“Shit,” said Jack. “Is everyone okay?”

Bucky nodded impatiently. “Yeah, just bruises, I fought them off. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” said Jack. “I told you, he’s a regular. He just wanted more of the same, and longer than an hour to enjoy it. He said he’d won big at poker.”

“Either he was lying, or the Russians set him up to win big and then convinced him somehow that you were what he wanted to spend it on,” said Bucky, because there was no way it had been a coincidence. “That feels more subtle than they seem to be.”

Jack shrugged. “Either way, he didn’t do anything I wasn’t expecting, and he paid me in full _and_ gave me a good tip.” He looked down at his spilt coffee. “It was kinda tiring though, and you made me drop my coffee. Can we go in so I can make more?”

Bucky glanced both ways along the street and nodded, stepping aside so that Jack could open the building door. He followed him inside, still feeling on high alert even with the evidence that Jack was fine in front of him.

Lucky was waiting by the door when Jack opened it and Jack fell to his knees to greet him in a way that looked automatic. Bucky edged around them and went into the kitchen to turn on the coffee machine. A few minutes later, Jack followed him in to fill up the dog’s food bowl.

“So, exactly what happened with the Russians?” he asked. “Should I be getting the first aid kit out?”

Bucky shook his head. “I told you, nothing but bruises. Well, for our people, a few of them were fucked up enough to need a doctor.” He gave Jack a wolfish grin at that, because fuck those assholes, seriously.

Jack leaned back against the counter and raised an eyebrow at him. “You fought them off without a scratch? How many were there?”

There wasn’t any sense in lying, not when everyone else on Spitzer Street would be able to give Jack the real details. “Two cars and a van,” he said. “They weren’t expecting me, though, and they definitely weren’t expecting my gun.” He wasn’t sure that was true, but he was certain they hadn’t been expecting the Winter Soldier.

No one ever did.

Jack raised his eyebrows, looking impressed. “You fought off that many Russian thugs with only bruises? That’s more than Army training. Were you Special Forces or something?”

Bucky gave him an unimpressed look. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

Jack conceded that with a tip of his head. “Okay, I guess the important thing is that they got scared off again. I wonder how long it’ll take them to regroup.”

“We can’t wait for that,” said Bucky. “We need to go on the offensive, or we’re going to be fighting the same battle over and over, until they get lucky. Do you know where their base of operations is?”

Jack let out a long sigh. “God, I hate that you’re right,” he muttered. “I thought I was done being the one attacking people.”

“You don’t have to be,” said Bucky. “I can do it alone, if we can get the intel.”

Jack shook his head. “I’m not letting you fight my battles for me.”

Bucky gave him a disbelieving look. “Aren’t you the one fighting Katya and the others’ battles for them? You can’t tell me these guys would be coming after you if you hadn’t intervened.”

Jack made a face that meant he didn’t want to admit how true that was, just as the coffee machine beeped to indicate it was ready. He turned to open a cupboard, reaching up to get two mugs out. His sleeve fell back and Bucky’s eyes fixed on red marks that wrapped around his wrist. All other thoughts wiped out of his head as he thought about where those must have come from. Impotent rage at the man who had put them there surged through him.

Jack turned back with the mugs and must have caught the look on his face. He glanced down at the bruises, then rolled his eyes. “Like I said before, he didn’t do anything I wasn’t expecting,” he said.

Bucky nodded, and did his best to school his expression so that Jack didn’t get pissed off. He really had to get control over his feelings for Jack or he was going to fuck up this fragile friendship they’d been building, the first friendship he’d had in seventy years.

Jack eyed him for a moment, then set the mugs down and started pouring out coffee. “Katya will know where they’re based, and probably the layout and number of combatants,” he said. “They brought her over here, and had her locked up for a while before she escaped.”

Bucky tried not to think about how horrific that must have been as he took a mug, cradling it in his hands. “We’ll ask her tomorrow then. I can scope it out and confirm as much as possible, then we’ll make a plan.”

Jack nodded grimly, then managed a weak smile and held his mug out. “Here’s to taking the fuckers out once and for all.”

Bucky chinked his mug against Jack’s, but he had a darkly sick feeling in his stomach that this whole thing was dragging Jack into a situation that he clearly hated, back to the things he’d become a hooker to avoid.

Privately, Bucky decided that unless it looked too much for him, he’d take the Russians out alone. It wasn’t as if fighting a bunch of pimps was going to be anything like as difficult as taking out a Hydra base, after all.

****

Bucky left Jack's after they'd had coffee, when Jack took Lucky out for a quick walk.

“Only a very quick one,” said Jack. “I need sleep. So much sleep.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky, because it had been a long night of worrying, but when he got back to his apartment, he couldn't sleep. He was still too on edge, hyped up from hours of adrenalin from the fear that something had happened to Jack. Lying awake, all he could picture was all the ways that Jack could get hurt, or killed, by one of his clients, and Bucky wouldn't be able to do a thing. He wouldn't even know until it was too late.

Fuck, he didn't even have Jack's phone number to check on him. 

Hell, he didn't even have a phone. Maybe it was time he got one, now that he had a friend to contact. 

He didn't bother going to the library the next day. His eyes felt gritty with exhaustion so he stayed on the sleeping bag he’d spread out on the floor and tried to get through the book about the Battle of New York. 

He couldn't really concentrate though, so he gave in and headed out to Spitzer Street early. He wasn't going to feel better until he had Jack in his sight.

He made himself get coffee first rather than rushing straight there like he wanted to, but he couldn't stop his eyes seeking out Jack's patch the moment he turned the corner. It was empty, which prompted another wave of anxious fear, because what if the Russians had found where he lived and gone after him?

A second later his eyes fixed on the other anomaly on the street, and all worries about Jack got swept away. There was a tall blond in a baseball cap halfway up the street, showing something to Katya, who was shaking her head. 

Steve. Fuck.

Bucky ducked into the first alleyway, abandoning the coffee as he pulled himself up a fire escape and onto the roof. Ducking low, he sprinted across several buildings until he was opposite Steve, then crouched down behind the square block of an air con unit.

He wasn't the only one there. Jack gave him a wild-eyed look, then glanced over his shoulder as if expecting more people to turn up. “What are you doing?” he asked in a hiss.

“I could ask you the same thing,” whispered Bucky. “Are you hiding?”

“Are you?” shot back Jack, and then made a face. “Fuck. Look, someone is down there asking questions, and I didn't want to get involved.”

“Did you hear what questions?” asked Bucky, clinging on to the hope that Steve's presence wasn't related to him at all and this was some kind of Avengers thing. He really didn't want to have to run now and leave Jack to deal with the Russians alone. 

“No, but I can guess,” said Jack grimly, and there was something resigned in his tone that made Bucky stare at him with realisation. 

“You know him.”

Jack shrugged one uncomfortable shoulder. “I used to. It's really important he doesn't see me.”

Bucky stared harder. “How the hell do you know Captain America?”

Jack started and then it was his turn to stare. “You recognised him? How did you recognise him? Shit, do you know him?”

A few moments passed while they both stared at each other and Bucky tried to work out how a hooker would know Steve, and why the hell he would be hiding from him. There was no way Steve was going around paying for sex, after all.

“Fuck,” said Jack under his breath, with feeling. “I'm gonna have to leave.”

“No,” said Bucky immediately, automatically. He hesitated, then gave in to the sickening realisation he'd been putting off since he'd spotted Steve. “I have to leave.”

He glanced around the aircon vent at the street. Steve had moved on to talking to Connor and his friends, who were also shaking their heads at whatever he was showing them. Bucky knew that didn't mean anything, though. No one on Spitzer Street was going to tell someone as clean-cut and official-looking as Steve anything, but if that was a photo of him, everyone was going to be asking questions as soon as he showed his face, and probably creating enough talk to get back to other ears. Hydra’s ears.

He couldn't stay. It would only put them all in much worse danger than a few Russian pimps. 

Bucky looked back at Jack. “I'll get the details of the Russians’ headquarters from Katya before I go, and take them out so you don't have to worry.”

“Who the hell are you?” asked Jack.

Bucky hesitated, but it was too late to keep hiding and he was sick of it anyway. “I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

Jack was silent for a long moment, looking back after Steve, who had made it to Julie. He sighed, then turned back to Bucky and nodded. “I guess you're not going to be telling him if you're also avoiding him.”

“Yeah, no way,” said Bucky. “No one's going to be asking about you if they do catch me, anyway.” He yanked the glove off his left hand, holding it up and flexing his fingers to make the metal plates shift.

Jack didn't flinch away, which Bucky was so unbelievably glad about, but he did stare. “You're the god-damned Winter Soldier.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky. 

“Fuck, no wonder you're avoiding Steve. You're Bucky Barnes.” Jack blinked and snorted a humourless laugh. “James. That actually is your real name.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky, pulling the glove back on. “Not many people know that the Winter Soldier was originally Bucky Barnes, though.”

In fact, only a bunch of Hydra’s high-ups and whoever Steve had told knew that. It had been kept out of the public domain, probably because admitting that the terrorist who blew up a chunk of DC had a memorial in Arlington was kinda embarrassing. If Jack knew, then he was far more than a prostitute with a shady past.

“I went through all the files on Hydra when they got dumped online,” Jack said. “I knew enough to unpick the codes they used to talk about you, and figured it out. Steve must be freaking out, especially if you’re still in the wind.”

Bucky frowned, because those codes weren’t something anyone would know unless… “You worked for SHIELD,” he realised.

Jack gave him a tired smile. “Agent Clint Barton, at your service.”

Bucky stared at him. “Hawkeye,” he said and, shit, that explained so much. And also raised a whole bunch of other questions. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“You’ve heard of me,” said Jack. Or maybe Bucky should be thinking of him as Clint now that he finally had his real name. “How the hell have you heard of me?”

“Hydra gave me files on all the top-level SHIELD agents they hadn’t been able to turn,” said Bucky. “I had standing orders that if I ran into them on a mission, I was to take them out. They didn’t want any witnesses who might be able to start joining dots up.”

Clint made a face. “Fuck, that makes sense,” he muttered. “Fucking assholes.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky shortly, then he let out a sigh, rubbing a hand over his face as he tried to work out what he should do now. The sick feeling in his stomach had spread, because not only was he going to have to leave everything here behind, including his first friend in years, but he’d probably destroyed any hope of continuing that friendship by revealing who he truly was. Agent Clint Barton would have read far too much intel about the Winter Soldier’s missions to want to be anywhere near Bucky now he knew.

Fuck, and that worked both ways. How could Bucky match the guy he’d got to know up with the file about a dangerously skilled spy that Hydra had given him?

“I need to get out of here if Steve has tracked me down,” he said, because focusing on the actions he needed to take was better than dwelling on feelings. He could deal with those later, much later, once he was out of here and holed up somewhere miles away from both Steve and Clint. “But I’m not leaving you with the Russians coming after you, even if you are one of the best marksmen in the world, and a hand-to-hand expert.”

“The best marksman in the world,” corrected Clint. “Not one of.”

Bucky managed a weak smirk. “Pal, you haven’t gone up against me before.”

Clint snorted. “Pal,” he repeated. “Jesus, how didn’t I notice you were from the forties?” he took a deep breath and glanced back at the street. Bucky followed his gaze to find that Steve had disappeared. “You may not have to cut and run. It might have been me Steve was looking for.”

“Okay,” said Bucky, slowly. “Gonna tell me why Captain America is looking for you?”

Clint shrugged. “Because, by all accounts, he’s now best buds with Natasha, who used to be my best friend.”

“Romanov,” Bucky filled in as his memory of the files he’d read and reread every time he was wiped came back. “The Black Widow.” He had a sudden memory of a deserted road and putting a bullet into his mission, through the woman trying to protect him. Fuck, if Steve was close to her, Bucky really couldn’t let him find him. He knew enough about the Black Widow to know she wasn’t the forgiving type.

Clint nodded and Bucky focused on him, pushing aside the memory to be gone over later. “Yeah. I know she’s still looking for me, no doubt to yell at me for unproductive coping mechanisms.”

“Coping mechanisms like running out on your life, using a bunch of fake names, and becoming a street hooker?” asked Bucky. “Yeah, seems like she won’t be the only one yelling. What the hell was bad enough to prompt that?”

He regretted it the second he asked. Clint’s face shuttered over and he pressed his lips together tightly for a moment.

“Sorry, don’t-” Bucky started to say, because God knew he didn’t want anyone asking him about the messy places in his past.

Clint interrupted him. “How far did you get with that?” he asked, nodding at the book in Bucky’s pocket.

Bucky glanced at it. Right, Hawkeye had been in it, albeit as something of a footnote. The author didn’t seem to know much about how he’d ended up fighting with the Avengers, but assumed he and Black Widow were supplied by SHIELD to bulk out the numbers. “You were at the Battle of New York,” he said. “Did something happen?”

“Something happened before the battle,” said Clint. He took a deep breath. “Loki- it says about Loki, right?” Bucky nodded. “Right. Loki could use magic to take control of people’s minds, creating himself a bunch of obedient minions. I was one of them.”

Bucky felt every muscle in his body tense up.

“I got free of it in time to fight the Chitauri,” said Clint, and he’d balled his hands into fists, “but I wasn’t- after the battle, I wasn’t okay. I needed time to just not be a fucking secret agent. I’d- People died. Friends of mine died.”

Bucky remembered what Clint had said before about having hurt his friends and needing to get out, and felt himself go cold. Fuck, how was that one of the things they had a shared experience of? He could remember hurting Steve, pummeling him until he bled and not knowing why it was making him feel so sick. Clint was the last person he’d have wanted to know what that felt like.

“So I cut and ran,” said Clint. “Went back to an older career for a bit, and then all the files leaked about SHIELD and Hydra. I went through it all and totted up just how many of my missions had actually been for them and-” His voice cracked and he rubbed a hand over his face. “Fuck,” he muttered. “I couldn’t go back. This is- It’s not great, but I’m not hurting anyone. Except Russian pimps, but I know they’re the bad guys, I know who I’m protecting, I know I’m not a fucking puppet for some asshole.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky, because that was a sentiment he could get behind. He hesitated, then reached out and put a careful hand on Clint’s knee, not sure if he should be touching him but not able to just leave him when he looked so upset. “Hey, I get it.”

Clint looked up at him, and let out a long, slow breath, then set his hand over Bucky’s. “Thanks,” he said.

They sat there for a moment longer, with Clint gripping at Bucky’s hand while Bucky hoped like hell that his feelings for him weren’t beaming out of his face. It turned out that Jack being a secret agent in hiding hadn’t put any kind of dent in them. If anything, hearing Clint’s story and knowing they both had being fucked over by Hydra in common, not to mention being brainwashed, had made him want to just wrap the guy up in his arms and keep him safe even more.

Fuck it, what did it matter now? Bucky was going to have to leave him behind or risk getting caught by Steve. Once he’d gone, he’d never be able to see him again.

The moment only lasted a handful of seconds. “We’re taking out the Russians together,” said Clint decisively, letting go of Bucky’s hand. “I’m not letting you go off alone, I don’t care how badass you think you are.”

“I’m incredibly badass,” said Bucky, which prompted a snort of either amusement or disbelief. Bucky chose to ignore it in favour of checking the street again in case Steve had come back, then he stood up. “C’mon, let’s go find out which of us he was chasing, then find out where this place is from Katya.”

Clint nodded. He took a deep breath before standing up, but once he was on his feet all traces of the emotional moment they’d just had was wiped away. “Let’s fuck some Russians up,” he said cheerily, bouncing on his heels.


	6. Chapter 6

They were cautious getting back off the roof, in case Steve was still around. Bucky followed Clint across a couple of buildings, ducking behind cover whenever they could, and tried not to feel like he had whiplash.

How the hell was Jack a secret agent as well known in the community as Hawkeye? It felt like a whole new person had turned up dressed up in Jack’s clothes. He was even moving differently, and Bucky thought about the easy way Jack had put on different personas for different clients. Fuck, he'd have learnt that from SHIELD.

Everything he'd thought he'd known about the guy was wrong. It was like having the earth shift under his feet and now he was going to have to work out how to find a new balance. 

Once they were back down in the alley, Clint paused to survey the street. 

“I hope Steve was on his own,” he said. “If Natasha's watching, we won't know until she's yelling at me for being a dumbass.”

“I guess if she does that, it’ll give me a chance to get away,” said Bucky, and Clint glanced over his shoulder at him with a familiar grin.

“You want me to work the distraction angle for you? I guess I am plenty distracting,” he said, and the flirting tone of his voice matched up all too well with Bucky’s mental picture of Jack. Fuck, maybe there wasn’t any difference between Clint and Jack, and Bucky needed to just take a moment to line up this new information with everything else he knew about Jack.

The street seemed quiet, so they took their chance and headed over to where Katya was leaning against a wall, chatting to Julie.

As soon as they saw Bucky and Clint coming over, they both straightened up and looked around the street.

“You’ve got someone looking for you,” said Julie, but she wasn’t looking at Clint. She was looking at Bucky.

Fuck, Steve was on his trail. He really needed to get this thing with the Russians sorted so that he could move on.

“What did he say?” asked Clint.

She shrugged. “Not much. Just that he was looking for an old buddy, and he had a couple of photos of you with short hair. Black and white ones, is that some kinda hipster thing?”

Bucky clenched his hands into fists. “Did you tell him anything?”

“Of course not,” said Julie.

“He had law enforcement all over him,” added Katya. “We don’t talk to those types.”

“No one else will have either,” said Clint. “It’s kind of an unwritten rule. Plus, they all know what you’re doing out here every night, protecting the girls. They’re not going to risk fucking that up.”

Bucky didn’t feel reassured. There were too many people who knew his face now, and knew where he’d be every night. What would he even do if Steve turned up one day? Run again?

A part of him wanted, more than anything, to actually talk to Steve. He might have only recently remembered how close they’d been before Hydra had taken him, but that didn’t mean he missed their friendship any less. He wanted to hug him and talk through how weird shit was these days compared to when they were kids, and ask him for confirmation on some of his hazier memories and- shit. He couldn’t do any of that without putting him in danger. As soon as Hydra knew their prized assassin was close to Captain America, they’d find some way of getting to him, saying the words and taking control so they could send him after Steve again. He couldn’t let that happen.

“We need to finish this with the Russians,” he said. “Tonight.” He looked at Katya. “Do you know where their base is?”

She nodded, glancing at Jack as if for confirmation that it was okay to tell him. “It’s on Burr Street, behind a bakery.”

Clint let out a quiet sigh. “I know the place. I thought they were just running illegal gambling.”

She shrugged. “That too. It’s a big operation.”

“How big?” asked Bucky. “How many guys they got?”

“And who’s in charge?” added Clint.

“Ah,” said Katya, hesitantly. “Nikolai is the big boss but I don’t know how many of them there are. Fifteen? Twenty?”

Julie glanced between Bucky and Clint. “What are you guys planning?”

“A precision strike,” said Bucky, meeting Clint’s eyes and seeing the same resolution in them that he was feeling. It was time to end this.

“If you guys get hurt doing something reckless, there’s going to be no one to watch our backs,” said Julie.

“We won’t be the ones getting hurt,” said Clint, with steel in his voice that Bucky could identify with. He was done waiting for these assholes to come by and shoot at them, or rough the women up, or whatever else they might be planning. If Clint was half as good as Hydra’s file had made Hawkeye out to be, then the two of them together would be able to put an end to this thing once and for all.

“Let the others know that we won’t be on the street tonight,” Clint added. “I don’t think the Russians will come here tonight after last night, but they should know there isn’t any back up if they do.”

Katya nodded. “I’ll spread the word.”

“But not about what we’re doing instead,” said Bucky. “We want to be a surprise.”

She and Julie agreed, then Clint and Bucky left.

“Quick recon, then kit up and take them down?” suggested Clint, and Bucky nodded. And then he’d leave tomorrow, and finally get over to Europe to take down Hydra there. It was for the best, even if it felt like having his heart torn out just to think about it.

****

It was completely dark by the time they’d finished the recon, which was only going to make this easier. The bakery was closed but there were a handful of figures inside it, playing some kind of card game and only keeping half an eye out through the window.

There was a loading door at the back that had another two guards outside, sharing a cigarette and talking softly in russian. From what Bucky overheard, they were discussing _The Bachelor_.

Inside was harder to scope out, but they watched the windows from the roof of the building across the street long enough to work out which ones were boarded up and so probably hid secrets, and which was an office with a big desk that a man was sitting behind, pouring out expensive vodka for another two. He was most likely Nikolai.

“How badly are we hurting them?” he asked Clint, because these guys weren’t Hydra so he wasn’t going to kill them without waiting for the word from a guy who was on the side of good. He didn’t know that he could trust his own sense of ethics enough to know when murder was called for, not any more.

“Enough to make sure they never come back from it,” said Clint. “I guess we try to be non-lethal on the guards but there’s no sense in breaking our backs over it, not when they’ll be shooting to kill. We need Nikolai alive so I can have a little talk with him. No sense in killing him so he just gets replaced by someone who doesn’t know to fear us.”

Bucky nodded, then hesitated. “You know I’m going to have to leave after this,” he said, because Clint had said ‘us’ as if he would still be around to help threaten the next guy.

Clint pressed his lips together and nodded without looking away from the window. “Those guys don’t, though.”

Bucky eyed the men in the office again, watching as they all laughed at something, then raised their glasses in a toast. One of them had turned towards the window enough for Bucky to recognise him as Vassily. Man, he was going to enjoy taking that asshole out.

“Okay,” said Clint. “Let’s go get tooled up and do this. I’m guessing you don’t need me to lend you any weapons?”

Bucky snorted as he followed him off the roof. “Not really, no.”

Hell, he could probably take the Russians on with just a knife and his metal arm, but that didn’t mean he was going to.

They split up to head back to their own places and when they met again, Clint was dressed entirely in black, with a tight hood pulled over his head that turned into a mask that hid his eyes and nose but left his mouth and chin uncovered. Bucky could see at least four weapons stashed around his body which meant he probably had closer to ten on him, but not one of them was the weapon he was expecting to see.

“No bow?” he asked.

Clint shook his head. “I’m not that guy any more,” he said, then shrugged one shoulder. “Plus I’m trying not to ping any radars. Taking out a bunch of assholes with arrows sounds like a great way to bring Nat right down on me.”

Bucky was wearing pretty much the same outfit he wore to take out Hydra, which had been thrown together from the combat gear he’d been wearing when he’d escaped their control. It was the first time he’d been around Clint with his gloves off and his arm on display, which felt weird even though Clint hadn’t spared it a second glance. He didn’t have any reason to hide anymore, not if Steve was already sniffing around after him. Once they’d done this, he’d need to grab his stuff and get out of the area as quickly as he could.

Which meant this was probably the last time he’d be hanging out with Clint. Fuck, that shouldn’t hurt as much as it did. He wasn’t ready to leave behind the first friend he’d made in this century.

Or the first guy he’d felt so much for, but he wasn’t letting himself think about that. Falling for a hooker he’d met on a street corner had been a bad idea even before he’d turned out to be a secret agent on the run.

“Okay, I’m thinking we want shock-and-awe tactics,” said Clint. “We go in loud and heavy. One of us goes in the front, takes out everyone in the bakery, the other goes in through the back so the reinforcements don’t know which way to run, then we work our way up the building to the office and have a little chat with Nikolai. Sound good?”

Bucky nodded. “I’ll take the bakery,” he said, because there were more guys in there than there had been out the back.

“That works,” said Clint. “Give me two minutes to get in place, then smash the window going in and I’ll take that as a signal.”

Bucky snorted. “We’re really not going for subtle, then?”

Clint shook his head. “Nope. We’re going to fuck these assholes up.” He gave Bucky a bright grin. “It’s going to be so much fun.”

Bucky couldn’t keep in a laugh at that, and for a moment he really wanted to lean in and kiss the grin off Clint’s face, but he was getting adept at repressing that kind of thing now, so he just waved a vague hand. “Go on, then. Two minutes, and if you’re not ready, I’ll just take them all out myself.”

Clint nodded and disappeared. Bucky turned to watch the bakery, staring at the dark figures inside and thinking that most of them were so involved in the game that they’d be taken out of the fight before they could even draw a weapon. This was going to be easy.

Ah crap, had he jinxed them by thinking that? He looked back at the guys playing the game and decided they’d be okay. There wasn’t much the Winter Soldier and Hawkeye couldn’t take on, even if they were both technically retired now.

He waited two minutes to let Clint get into place, then just strode across the road, waiting until the first guy had seen him and started to react before shooting out the glass of the window, then putting bullets in the two guys already reaching for their weapons.

The loud shatter of glass and the echoing explosions of gunfire rang out on the street loudly enough to wake the whole neighbourhood, if it were the kind of neighbourhood to be asleep in the first place. Bucky stepped through the hole where the window had been and shot another guy before anyone managed to get a gun turned on him, then deflected the first bullet coming at him with his metal hand, which caused a lot of the Russian shouting to turn into swearing.

But not for long, because it only took two more shots before the whole group were down for the count. More of them were dead than Clint had probably intended, but Bucky wasn’t interested in leaving any enemies down here who might be able to pull it together to come up behind them as they moved through the building.

He could hear gunshots from up ahead as he moved through the kitchen, then silence. The door at the back opened and Bucky managed to hold his fire so he didn’t shoot Clint as he glanced in.

“Clear?” he asked, and Bucky nodded.

“Clear.”

“The stairs are here,” said Clint, as running footsteps clattered over the floor above them.

The stairs were narrow, and could have been the perfect place for the bad guys to get them in a killbox if they’d waited out of sight on the landing above and taken them out as they tried to get up in single file, but it turned out the guys were idiots so instead they all rushed down to where Clint and Bucky were waiting for them.

“Think that was everyone, or just the stupid ones?” asked Clint once there were only collapsed bodies, some of them making faint, pained noises.

Bucky shrugged. “Only one way to find out,” he said, reloading his gun, then starting up the stairs with his metal arm angled to the front as a makeshift shield.

A couple of bullets pinged off it as he reached the top, and he saw that Vassily and another guy had holed up in what must be the boss’s office.

“Now would be a good time to surrender,” Clint called at them, and got a torrent of Russian swear words and threats in response, followed by a hail of bullets. Both he and Bucky ducked back down the stairs, out of range.

“Ideas?” asked Clint.

Bucky shrugged. “Rush them?”

Clint gave him a long, incredulous look. “And just hope they miss us when they start shooting? You know, I think I’m beginning to see why you and Steve were friends. You have a lot in common.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “What’s your plan then? Stay here, pinned down, until the cops show up?”

Because even in this shitty part of town, the cops would eventually turn up to investigate a full-scale armed incursion.

Clint edged up on to the same stair as him, which put him very close to Bucky in a way that Bucky had to fight to ignore. “Nah,” he said, and glanced around the corner at the doorway, then pulled his head back quickly as bullets thudded into the wall behind him. “I was just going to shoot the assholes.”

He tipped a wink at Bucky, then leaned out and shot twice without even looking before he pulled back.

There was silence from the Russians. Clint gave Bucky a grin, then stepped up onto the landing, apparently completely unconcerned about being shot. Bucky followed him to see two bullet holes in the wall, one either side of the doorway.

Bucky could hear the sound of frantic movement further inside the room, but nothing from the guys who had been shooting. He spared a quick glance at Clint, thinking that Hydra's file on him hadn't been as thorough as it could be if Clint was able to nail two guys through a wall without even seeming to think about it. 

“We're coming in,” Clint called. “We're not intending to shoot you, as long as you don't shoot at us.”

He didn't wait for a response before heading for the door like a suicidal maniac, so Bucky cut in front of him to go in first, ignoring the snort of amusement. He wasn't about to let the guy get shot on his watch. Not again.

As soon as he stepped through the door, a shot was fired by a man crouching behind the desk. The bullet went right through the side of Bucky's tac vest and skidding across the edge of his ribcage. Pain burnt through him, but he could tell it was only a graze and would heal quickly enough. 

Before the guy could get off a second shot, Clint had shot his hand, making him drop his gun with a yelp. 

“Seriously, we just want to talk,” said Clint, then glanced at Bucky. “You okay?”

“Fine,” gritted out Bucky, keeping his gun aimed at the guy. “Are you Nikolai?”

The guy had his bleeding hand cradled against his chest. “Fuck you,” he spat out, which Bucky took as a yes.

“Keep your hands where we can see them,” said Clint, stepping forward.

Bucky turned to look at the two crumpled figures by the door. They weren’t dead, although one of them had passed out and he didn’t rate their chances if an ambulance didn’t turn up soon. He kicked their guns away, then gave Vassily, who was still conscious but clutching at his shoulder with a pale face, a grin.

“So, here's how this is going to go,” said Clint in a friendly tone to Nikolai. “As of this moment, you're out of the prostitution game. No more pimping, no more brothels, definitely no more people trafficking or kidnapping girls off the street.”

“Why the hell should I do what you say?” asked Nikolai. 

“Because we left some of your guys alive this time, but if we have to come back, we'll just take everyone out,” said Clint. “You stay off Spitzer Street and the area around it completely, and you definitely don’t hassle anyone who earns a living on it.”

“You're that rentboy,” said Nikolai. “Don't think a mask hides you. I am going to destroy you.”

“I feel like we're having a communication problem,” said Clint, and Bucky decided it was time to step in.

“You won't do anything to him,” he said. “It doesn't matter who he is, it matters who I am.”

Nikolai managed to roll his eyes despite the multiple guns pointed at him and the blood still seeping out of his hand. “Another fucking whore?”

“Not so much,” said Bucky. “I’m the Winter Soldier.” He repeated it in Russian just to make sure the message got across, but it was clear from Nikolai’s whitening face that he didn’t need to bother.

“That’s a fucking ghost story,” spat Nikolai.

“Surprise,” said Clint.

Bucky held up his metal hand and waggled his fingers in a wave at him to prove a point. “If you don’t do what he says and stay out of Spitzer Street, I’m going to come after you and everyone you care about,” he said in the menacing growl that he’d never used much as the Winter Soldier, because Hydra mostly liked him silent. He’d actually developed it to threaten the boys on the next street over who thought winding Steve up until he attacked them and then beating him into the ground was funny.

“You must be some fuck if you’ve pussy-whipped the Winter Soldier,” Nikolai spat at Clint, and Bucky didn’t even think about it. He reached out and grabbed Nikolai’s bleeding hand in his metal one, tightening his grip until Nikolai cried out in pain.

“Are you going to play nicely, or do I need to make an example of you?” he asked.

“Fuck, fuck!” shouted Nikolai. “Let go, asshole!” Bucky tightened his grip. “Fine! Fine, I’ll leave you fuckers alone!”

Bucky let go of his hand and took a step back, glancing at Clint.

“Cool, then we’ve got an agreement,” said Clint, happily. “Guess that means we’re done.”

He went back out onto the landing, but Bucky lingered to fix Nikolai with a glare. “You really don’t want to make me come back,” he said, and Nikolai nodded frantically.

Satisfied that he’d done as much as he could -and thinking that maybe he could just pop back around next time he was in New York to glare at the guy from a distance and make sure he knew he was being watched- he followed Clint out.

Clint was on the landing, standing to one side as he looked out the window. He glanced at Bucky and gestured down at the two cop cars that had pulled up. The police were crouching cautiously behind them, clearly not sure if it was safe to go in, but it wouldn’t take long before they got over that.

“Out through the roof?” suggested Clint.

Bucky nodded, tucking his gun away so he had both hands free for climbing.

“Hey, how much illegal shit do you think there's evidence of in this place?” asked Clint as he opened up the roof access. “Enough for a couple of decades in prison?”

“Hopefully,” said Bucky as he followed him. These guys all ending up rotting inside a prison would put a nice cap on the whole thing.

****

They stayed on the roofs until they were two streets away, then dropped back down in an alleyway.

“Okay,” said Bucky, because he couldn't put this off anymore, “I guess this is it then.”

“What?” said Clint. “Oh, hell no. You're expecting me to let you just walk away while you're bleeding from a gunshot wound?”

Bucky glanced down at his chest. “It's fine. It'll heal.”

“You can't be serious,” said Clint. “You didn't let me get away with that when I was shot, you really think I'll let you get away with it? Nope. You're coming back to mine to be patched up.”

Bucky hesitated, because it really would heal on its own, but he couldn't stop himself from wanting the excuse to spend more time with Clint. 

“Plus, Lucky will want to see you,” added Clint, which was clearly bullshit, but Bucky let himself give in.

“Sure, okay,” he said. “I hope he knows I don't carry dog treats in my combat gear.”

“I think he'll cope,” said Clint, pulling his hood off and ruffling a hand through his hair, which did nothing to sort out the mess it was in. Bucky wanted to bury his fingers in it.

He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep control of them and followed Clint home, trying not to think about how every minute he spent with him was putting off the inevitable moment when he was going to have to say goodbye, then go home, pack up his stuff, and leave.

Fuck, he’d been creating a home here. Not in the condemned apartment he was squatting in, which still looked as bare as when he’d moved in by dumping his bag of weapons in one corner and rolling out a sleeping bag on the floor, but on Spitzer Street, with Clint and Julie and Katya and all the others he’d ended up getting to know. And now he was going to have to give it all up.

When they got to Clint’s and Lucky came over to nudge at Bucky after he’d greeted Clint, Bucky couldn’t stop himself from falling to his knees and giving him a hug. It wasn’t as if he’d get away with hugging Clint, after all, and he needed some kind of comfort before he left to go back to the lonely life of trekking from one Hydra base to another.

“I knew Lucky would win you over,” said Clint with satisfaction. “No one stays ambivalent about dogs when he’s around.”

Bucky made himself stand up with one last pat of Lucky’s head. “Are you going to offer me coffee, like a normal host?”

“Okay, rude,” said Clint, but he headed into the kitchen and put on the coffee machine. “Sit down, let me get the first aid kit, and try not to bleed on anything.”

Bucky rolled his eyes but did as he was instructed, sitting on the couch with his injured side held away from the cushions. Lucky jumped up next to him and flopped down with his head on Bucky’s leg, giving him an adoring look that Bucky was very sure he hadn’t earned.

It took Clint a few minutes, but eventually he came over with coffee for both of them and the kit, and sat down next to Bucky.

“Okay, let’s get a look at it,” he said, opening the kit up. “Shirt off.” He paused, then made a face. “Uh, or at least pull it up so I can see, if you don’t want-”

Bucky didn’t bother waiting for him to finish. He stripped off his combat jacket then pulled the t-shirt he had underneath off and dumped it beside him.

Clint’s words dried up as he blinked at Bucky’s chest a couple of times. Bucky tried to ignore that he was probably staring at all the scars and held himself rigid underneath Clint’s gaze. He’d earned those scars, he wasn’t about to be ashamed of them.

“Uh,” said Clint. “Okay. Great. Apparently you’re not self-conscious about that anymore.”

“I never was,” said Bucky. “I just didn’t really think showing off my arm was a good idea when I was trying to stay off the radar.”

Clint’s eyes darted over to his arm. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Guess I can see that.” He took a deep breath, then turned his attention to the bullet wound.

He patched it up more professionally than Bucky would have thought, but he guessed being a SHIELD agent came with some sort of medical training. He didn’t have the heart to tell Clint that there was no point in putting that much effort into something that would be healed up in a day or two. Instead, he kept one hand on Lucky’s head, stroking over his ears, and tried to ignore just how close Clint was to him, and how his fingers felt brushing over the bare skin of his chest as he stuck a dressing down.

“Okay,” said Clint, sitting back and rolling out his shoulders as if patching Bucky up had been stressful. “All done. You want a painkiller or anything?”

Bucky snorted. “Nah, I think I’m good.” He’d spent seventy years being sliced up and patched back together without painkillers, he didn’t need one for a graze.

“Okay, cool,” said Clint, and slumped back against the end of the sofa. “Man, I’m wiped out. I guess I’m out of practice at taking out a nest of assholes.”

Bucky shot him a lopsided smile that he didn’t really feel. “Seems like all I’ve been doing since the Triskelion fell.” He considered. “Well, except for the last couple of months here, but I guess the break is over. Time to get back to it.”

The thought didn’t energise him in the way that finding a new Hydra base to take down had done before he walked down Spitzer Street for the first time. He didn’t want to be wandering about Europe on a lone vengeance mission. He wanted to stay here, where he could buy Clint coffee every evening, and join him walking Lucky in the park every morning, and maybe let himself pay to be closer to him every couple of weeks.

Clint made a face. “I’d ask if you’re sure that Steve will come back, but I’ve met the guy, I know how stubborn and relentless he is.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky. “Don’t worry, once I get to Europe I’ll make sure to get sighted somewhere so you don’t need to worry about him coming back here and spotting you.”

“Thanks, man,” said Clint. “And, you know, you’re always welcome to come back and say hi, once he’s forgotten all about whatever led him over this way.”

Bucky shifted around to better give him a sceptical look. “You’re asking the Winter Soldier to come hang out some time?”

“Sure,” said Clint, shrugging a shoulder. “I mean. You realise I’m the guy who became besties with Black Widow after being given the mission to take her out, right? Befriending assassins is kinda my thing.” He paused, then added, “Or it used to be. Now I mostly just proposition them on street corners.” He gave Bucky a cheesy wink that Bucky couldn’t help rolling his eyes at.

“Sure, okay,” he said. “So if Natasha Romanov walked down Spitzer tomorrow night…?”

“I would run into an alley, climb onto a roof, and keep running until I hit the Pacific coast,” said Clint promptly. “Are you kidding? Nat’s going to kill me if she ever catches up with me.”

“You don’t ever think about sending her a message somehow?” asked Bucky.

Clint gave him a sharp look. “Do you ever think about getting a message to Steve?”

No, because all that would do, no matter how Bucky worded it to try and persuade Steve to give up hunting him and let him be, would be to galvanise the stubborn punk.

“Okay, fair point,” said Bucky. He glanced at the window, where daylight was beginning to lighten the sky. “I should go,” he said, without moving.

“Sure,” said Clint. “Or, you could eat something before you run off on the lam. I know a 24-hour pizza delivery place.”

Bucky snorted. “Of course you do.” That actually sounded pretty good, though. It had been a long night, and he could do with a meal.

Especially one that meant another hour or two with Clint before he had to leave forever.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, waving a hand at Clint. “I guess we should celebrate taking those assholes out for good.”

Clint grinned at him, sitting up and grabbing for his phone. “Exactly. I’ll get them to put a couple of sparklers on top, or something. And you should definitely leave your shirt off, Handsome, because taking in that view is a celebration all by itself.”

Bucky snorted, and stroked his hand over Lucky’s head again. A couple of hours more couldn’t hurt, after all. If Steve was looking for him on Spitzer Street, he wasn’t going to bother looking in daylight, when the place was pretty much dead. He had time.


	7. Chapter 7

The sun was fully up before Bucky was finally able to make himself leave Clint’s.

“I guess this is it for a while,” he said, one hand resting on the door handle.

Clint made a face. “Man, don’t say that.”

Bucky shrugged. “It’s kinda true.”

“Yeah, I know,” muttered Clint. “Look, just, don’t go getting killed or anything, yeah? And seriously, come find me when you make it back over here.” He shrugged awkwardly, sliding his hands into the back pockets of his pants. “Lucky will want to see you, and you know where I’ll be.”

“Don’t _you_ go getting hurt,” said Bucky. “If those Russian assholes find some friends…”

Clint rolled his eyes. “I’ll fuck them up,” he said. “C’mon, you seriously think Hawkeye is going to get taken down by a bunch of thugs like that? Besides, there’s no way anyone’s coming after me when they think I’ve got the Winter Soldier in my pocket.”

“Feel free to keep name-dropping me then,” said Bucky. He might not be able to stay here and keep watching Clint’s back from across the street, but if his reputation would still protect him, he was more than happy for Clint to bandy it about.

He clenched his hand on the door handle, because this was the point where he needed to finally open it and walk out, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to move. “Okay, well, goodbye,” he said, still stalling for time.

Clint rolled his eyes. “C’mere, then.” He leaned in and wrapped Bucky up in a hug before Bucky even knew it was happening. He startled for a moment, not used to physical gestures like that and part of his mind waiting for violence, then he caught up and relaxed into it, wrapping his arms around Clint and holding on, pressing his face into Clint’s shoulder and trying not to be obvious about breathing in his smell. Oh fuck, he really was going to miss him. Tears pricked at his eyes, but he blinked them away. He’d always known this was how it was going to end. He couldn’t stay here and fuck up Clint’s life by bringing Steve down on them both.

When Clint pulled away, Bucky wanted to cling on tighter and keep him close, but he let him go, forcing himself to keep as many of his emotions off his face as he could.

“Okay, well. Be seeing you, Handsome,” said Clint.

Bucky forced a smile on his face. “See you later, Clint Jack Ronin Flynn Rob Hawkeye Barton.”

Clint snorted a laugh. “You know, when you say it like that, it kinda sounds ridiculous.”

“You don’t say,” said Bucky, rolling his eyes, and then forced himself to finally turn the handle and step out of the apartment.

He walked home a lot slower than he usually did, taking in the sights of the area as it slowly woke up. Damn, he was going to miss this corner of Brooklyn. 

At the end of his road was a grocery that was just opening. A staff member was setting a range of fruit and veg out on a rack of shelves outside it. Bucky paused to look it over, then ended up grabbing some plums, telling himself it was important to have food with him when he left to try and find a way for an international fugitive to get to Europe. It was nothing to do with wanting to linger just a minute or two longer in the neighbourhood.

Walking up the stairs to his apartment, thinking through what he needed to pack up and take with him, and what he should leave for the next squatter, felt like his feet were filling up with lead as each heavy step came down.

_You only get to wallow for now,_ he told himself. Once he was inside, he’d push all the emotion to one side and focus on getting the hell out of the US without pinging any law enforcement or Hydra alerts.

He pushed open the door and stepped inside with slumped shoulders, then froze up.

Someone was inside.

It was Steve, standing by the window with one of Bucky’s books open in his hand. Bucky felt every muscle in his body go into lockdown. He couldn’t run, because Steve would chase him, and Bucky was willing to bet the asshole was still faster than Bucky.

Shit.

“Bucky,” said Steve, sounding as if he couldn’t believe it.

Bucky didn’t move, not even to blink.

Steve took a tentative step towards him. “Do you remember me?”

“You’re Steve Rogers,” said Bucky. He nodded at the book Steve was holding. “I read about you.”

Steve snorted, then pulled out Bucky’s bookmark, holding it up to show the list of memories Bucky had scrawled down one particularly shitty night, when he’d been clawing at reality with desperation after one too many nightmares. “You’re lying.”

Bucky didn’t have anything to say to that. Fuck, this was a disaster. Now Steve had him cornered, he didn’t have a hope of getting away. He was going to get dragged to Stark’s ridiculous Tower, or put in some maximum security facility while every country on the planet fought over who got to lock him up and throw away the key, and then Hydra was going to know just where to find him. They’d send someone in, someone who knew the right words to say to get him to disappear back into their puppet, and then they wouldn’t ever let him go again.

“You pulled me from the river,” said Steve. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” lied Bucky.

“Yes, you do,” said Steve. He let out a sigh, then dropped the book back on top of Bucky’s sleeping bag. “Look, Bucky-”

And Bucky couldn’t keep himself from flinching at that, because hearing his name in such a familiar voice opened up a plethora of memories, crashing down into his brain.

From the sharp flicker of Steve’s eyes, he noticed the reaction, but he kept talking, “-I get why you think you need to run, but I can help you.”

“I don’t need help,” said Bucky. He finally forced himself to move, letting the door fall shut behind him and setting the plums down before he ended up smashing them in frustration. How long had Steve been waiting here? If he hadn’t stayed for pizza with Clint could he have got away? Or if he’d gone as soon as he knew Steve was closing in, rather than waiting to take out the Russians first?

No, he couldn’t have left Clint to do that alone.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Having you around is only gonna draw the wrong kind of attention.”

Steve nodded. “You’re worried about Hydra,” he said, and Bucky felt himself flinch again. Fuck, this was sending his emotions all over the place, he needed to get himself locked down before Steve took it as a weakness he could exploit.

And he would be able to exploit it. Having Steve in front of him, his best friend, his brother, the guy he’d grown up with, and laughed with, and fought beside, was making Bucky want to just give in and start crying, as if he could finally set some of his burden down now that Steve was there to catch him. Fuck, he’d missed him.

“You don’t need to be,” said Steve, and Bucky snorted.

“You’re still a fucking idiot,” he said, giving up on the attempt to pretend he was still in an amnesiac fog, because it was clear Steve wasn’t buying it. “Hydra are going to be coming after me until the day I die. And if they find me, they’ll only have to snap their fingers to have their pet assassin back.”

Steve nodded. “The implanted command words. You’re worried they’ll use them.”

“Of course I’m fucking worried,” said Bucky, then forced himself to take a deep breath and run a hand through his hair. “Look, Stevie, it’s good to see you, but you need to fuck off and leave me alone. Stop looking for me. You’re kinda high profile, and Hydra ain’t stupid. They know all they have to do is keep an eye on you to find me.”

For the first time, the stubborn resolution on Steve’s face cracked, and he took a deep breath. “Stevie,” he muttered. “Fuck, no one’s called me that in decades.” A moment later he’d shaken it off, or at least appeared to. Bucky wasn’t stupid enough to think that Steve wasn’t yearning to break down and hug him.

Truth be told, Bucky kinda wanted to hug him too, but that was only going to encourage the guy.

“I need to go,” said Bucky. He headed over to his stuff, which was all still packed in bags, ready to be grabbed. He pulled a couple of guns off his person and threw them in his weapons bag, then zipped it shut.

“No, wait,” said Steve. “Listen, Bucky. You need to come to the Tower.”

Bucky snorted. “You mean, the first place Hydra would have put a watch on once they realised I’d broken their hold? Yeah, no way.”

He pulled a hoodie out of his clothes bag and swapped his combat jacket out for it so he’d be less conspicuous on the street.

“No, listen,” said Steve, stepping forward and taking hold of Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky froze up, then shook him off, shifting out of his reach. 

Steve wasn’t put off. “We’ve got the files Hydra had on you. Most of them, anyway, and then some more from the bases you knocked over. Tony’s been working at it, and he thinks he has a way to delete Hydra’s programming.”

Bucky stared at him. “Bullshit,” he said, in a voice that croaked, because he couldn’t let himself have hope.

“Nope,” said Steve. “He really does. He said he can’t be completely sure without running a couple of tests on you.” Bucky winced at the idea and Steve reached a hand out, then dropped it without touching him. “I trust him,” he said. “He’s- He’s like Howard, but better, only don’t tell him I said that. If he thinks he can fix it, he can.”

Emotion welled up in Bucky at the idea, but he relentlessly stomped it down. “Steve,” he said, softly. “I killed Howard. And his wife.”

Steve swallowed, and nodded. “Yeah,” he said, just as softly. “I know. Tony knows. We found those files as well. I’m not saying he wasn’t upset, but he still wants to help. He’s a good guy, Bucky, you can trust him.”

Bucky hesitated, feeling torn. Every instinct of self-preservation was telling him to cut and run, but he couldn’t stop himself from giving in to the insidious creep of hope. “He can really get rid of their programming?”

“He thinks he can,” said Steve. “Look, Bucky. Come to the Tower, give him two weeks - hell, give him a week. If he can’t do it, I’ll let you go, and I won’t come after you again, I promise. But just, please. Let him try.” He paused, then hit Bucky with the wide-eyed, soulful look that he’d never been able to say no to, even when he knew what Steve was asking for was going to end with them both in trouble. “Please. I’ve missed you.”

Fuck. Bucky let out a very long breath, staring down at his bag as if it would give him any answers. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll come to the Tower.”

Steve’s face lit up and he took a step forward. “Thank you.” He reached out as if to hug him, but dropped his arms before he quite made it.

Well, if Bucky was giving in on this, he might as well give in all the way. He stepped in and gave Steve the hug he was looking for. Steve wrapped his arms around him and clung on tightly enough that Bucky was glad he’d been enhanced. 

“Fuck, I really missed you,” said Steve, and he was starting to sound a bit tearful.

Bucky just hung on. “Yeah, me too,” he said tiredly, thinking about all the years that had gone by without him knowing that he should be missing this. Nothing ever felt right without knowing Steve had his back and he had Steve’s.

Steve clung on for a minute or two longer, then pulled back, rubbing at his face.

“Okay,” he said, glancing down at Bucky’s bags. “Is that all you’ve got? My bike’s around the corner, but we should be able to fit it on.”

Bucky looked down at the three bags. His clothes, his weapons, and then the bag of money that he’d taken from Hydra and barely touched. What the hell was he going to do with that? He wasn’t going to need it if Steve and his billionaire friend were going to be taking him under their wing.

He could think of quite a few people who did need it, though. He remembered what Clint had said about Katya being trafficked to the US by Nikolai and his gang, and about Connor and his friends who should have been in high school, and the way Julie’s mouth twisted with self-hatred whenever she was headed off to find her dealer.

Mostly, he thought about Clint and the emptiness of his fridge, the frayed sleeves of his hoodie and how a few bad days left him standing on a street corner in the pouring rain so he could feed his dog.

“I can’t come right away,” he said.

Steve frowned at him. “What? Come on, Buck-”

“No,” interrupted Bucky. “I need some time. Give me a day to get my shit sorted, then I’ll come.”

Steve made the face he always made when he didn’t get his way. Shit, every second Bucky spent with him was awakening a hundred new memories and firming up some of the hazy ones he’d already got back.

“I’ll come to the Tower as soon as I’m ready,” he said. “Tell Stark that if his security try and shoot me, I’m not going to pay for the collateral damage.”

Steve sighed. “Yeah, okay,” he said. He rubbed a hand over his face. “Don’t go to the main lobby, then. There’s a parking lot entrance around the left side, and an elevator door. Go there, and I’ll come down and meet you.”

Bucky nodded. “Okay, got it.”

Steve fixed him with a firm glare. “And you better come, Bucky, or I’ll be back to drag you over.”

“I said I was coming, didn’t I?” said Bucky. “Quit worrying and go away so I can get some sleep. It’s been a very long night.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed. “A long night doing what?” His eyes flicked down to the bag Bucky had put his combat gear in.

Bucky just shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll hear about it,” he said, because there was no way that the mess he and Clint had left behind wasn’t going to feature in the news today. “It was totally deserved,” he added.

Steve stared at him for a long moment, then his face cracked into a smile. “Jeez, Bucky. I guess some things don’t change.”

Bucky didn’t know how true that was, but he found a smile anyway. “And that’s how you know I’ll come find you at the Tower,” he said. “Till the end of the line, yeah?”

Steve’s reaction to that was almost alarming. His eyes actually went suspiciously shiny as he smiled at Bucky as if he were a puppy taking his first steps. “Yeah,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Yeah. Till the end of the line, Bucky.”

Bucky nodded, dropping his head so that his hair hid his face, because he wasn’t sure he could take much more emotion. “Then get the hell out of here, punk, and I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll see you,” said Steve, and finally left, only glancing back at Bucky once from the door as if he couldn’t quite believe he was there.

Bucky let out a deep breath as soon as he was gone and dropped down onto his sleeping bag to curl over his knees and try and process all that.

****

He did end up sleeping, after he’d thought through exactly what he was going to do now that everything had changed. He had the time to say goodbye to this part of his life properly, so how did he want to do that?

The answer to that was pretty obvious.

He slept away most of the day, assuming Clint was doing the same, then packed up all his stuff and cleared out every trace of himself from the apartment before going back over to Clint’s.

It was just before nightfall, so he figured Clint would be getting ready to go to Spitzer Street, but he wasn’t quite prepared for him to open his door wearing nothing but a towel.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever be prepared for that. It was quite a view.

“Oh, hi, Handsome,” said Clint, surprised. There was something off about his voice and he was speaking a little too loudly. Bucky glanced at his ears and realised he wasn’t wearing his hearing aids. “I figured you’d be a couple of hundred miles away by now.” He took in the three bags Bucky had with him. “Are you only just leaving now?”

“Things changed,” said Bucky, hoping Clint would be able to read his lips because even if he hadn’t had his hands full of bags, the crash course in ASL Clint had given him hadn’t gone this far. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” said Clint, opening the door to let him in. “Let me get my aids. And maybe some pants.”

He disappeared off to his bedroom as Bucky stacked his bags by the door. Lucky didn’t seem to be around, or maybe he was just sleeping, but either way, Bucky went unmolested as he sat down on the couch.

Clint came back in sweatpants and one of his tight t-shirts, and threw himself down beside Bucky. “Okay, so, are you just here for a longer goodbye, or…?”

“Sort of,” said Bucky. “But I figured you should know. Steve was waiting back at my apartment when I got home.”

Clint straightened up. “Oh shit.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky, “except not really. Apparently Stark has some kinda idea on how to remove the brainwashing shit that Hydra left in my brain. Their code words.”

“Oh, that’s great news,” said Clint. “Wait, that is great news, right? You are going to go and let him do it, and not just run off?”

“Yeah,” said Bucky. “I-” He stopped, because he didn’t know that he wanted to talk about this yet, or ever. When he looked at Clint, at the concerned look in his eyes, he realised that there was pretty much nothing about his life that he wasn’t willing to share with the guy now. He was sick of keeping secrets. “One of the missions I got sent on was to kill Howard Stark,” he confessed, and Clint’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything. “I tracked his car until he was in the middle of nowhere, then took out him and his wife, and made it look like an accident.”

“Oh man,” said Clint, and reached out for Bucky, setting a hand on his thigh and giving it a squeeze. “Fuck, that sucks.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky, and he took a deep breath. “So, I figure I owe his kid a chance to mess about with my brain and fix me, if he thinks he can.”

Clint nodded slowly. “I didn’t get to know him all that well before I left, but he’s a good guy,” he said. “He made me these,” he said, tapping his hearing aids. “Without me even mentioning it, he just showed up and handed them to me. He said he’d seen the schematics for my old ones on my file and it had made him sad how obsolete they were. I think he just likes fixing stuff.”

“Well, here’s hoping he can fix me, then,” said Bucky, then took a deep breath and cleared his throat before things could get too emotional. “Anyway, I figured if I was going to be at his Tower, word was likely to get out that you might hear, and I wanted to let you know that I was going in of my own accord and that I wasn’t going to mention you. Not to anyone.”

“I actually wasn’t worried about that, but thanks for the reassurance,” said Clint. He hesitated, then tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Man, okay, I get this is a great thing for you, but it’s all a bit too close to the things I’ve been hiding from for years. If you see Nat-” He cut himself off and shook his head. “No, stupid idea. She’s perceptive enough without leaving her any god-damn breadcrumbs.”

Bucky eyed his profile for a moment, then said, hesitantly, because he wasn’t sure this was his place, “Hey, if you guys were friends, I’m pretty sure you could get in contact without her dragging you back in, or whatever you’re scared of. It’s not like they can force you to be an agent or an Avenger or anything.”

Clint shook his head. “No way. How the hell am I supposed to explain all this?” he asked, with a sweep of his hand that took in the apartment, but was clearly also meant to include his current career. “No, it’s better if I just cut ties completely, or Nat will be trying to ‘fix’ my life and it doesn’t need it. I’m fine.”

Bucky wasn’t so sure he was, but he knew better than to say anything. “Okay, man,” he said. “Your call.”

“And that’s why you’re my favourite,” said Clint, rolling his neck to give Bucky a grin. “Everyone else always has opinions about what I do, and the way I’ve set myself up. You just leave it up to me.”

Bucky shrugged awkwardly. “It would be kinda hypocritical given the shit I’ve been doing for the last few decades,” he said. “If doing this makes sense to you, then why the hell not? Just,” he couldn’t help adding, “seems like a waste of your skills. Your shooting is pretty good, you know.”

“Pretty good,” muttered Clint, then shook his head. “Doing this makes use of my other skills,” he pointed out, then dropped his voice into that sexy tone that sent shivers up Bucky’s spine every damn time. “Skills you seemed pretty impressed with when you got to experience them.”

Which meant, of course, that all Bucky could think about was Clint's mouth on his cock. Fuck, he was not going to get an erection right now, that wasn’t why he was here. He tried out a shrug that felt far too forced to have looked natural. 

“I remember you being okay at getting coffee.”

Clint didn’t seem to be paying attention. He gave Bucky a bright look, as if something had just occurred to him. “Hey, if you're only going to Manhattan, you'll be able to pop back around, right? You can come see me any time you get too stressed.”

That was an entirely too tempting thought. “You better not be about to offer me another discount.”

“Nah, I reckon the guy living with a billionaire can pay full price for a blowjob, “ said Clint. “Or a fuck, I know you've thought about that.”

And just like that, Bucky couldn't think about anything else. Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face, because Clint's face took on a smug smile. 

“Oh yeah, you've thought about it. You want to get me on my back and just sink inside me, just fuck into me while I can’t do anything except moan for more.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Bucky as his face heated up. So much for not getting hard. “Seriously?”

Clint just shrugged unrepentantly. 

Bucky cleared his throat. “You're not entirely right, anyway,” he said, because if they were going to play this game, he wasn't going to let Clint win. “You know what I was looking for with you before; a chance to get that part of myself back, and remember that I know how to blow someone's mind. If we were to do more than blowjobs, I'd want to take my time. Get you laid out and practice touching and tasting you everywhere and sure, fuck you, but I'd want to see how things went with you fucking me as well. I’d want to see if my suspicions about what my stamina and refractory period are like now are correct, if I can keep going and going until you're fucked out and exhausted, and then still be able to jerk off over how you look.”

Clint had a glazed look on his face, which Bucky took as a personal triumph. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Sounds like you're going to need a whole night, then. That can definitely happen.” He grinned at Bucky. “And I won’t even offer you a discount.”

Fuck, that was so tempting. The idea of not just getting to spend hours exploring everything he wanted to do to Clint, but also getting to fall asleep next to him and not be expected to move until the next morning, was enough to make Bucky hesitate.

Clint noticed, of course. “When is Steve expecting you? We could do it tonight, and then I won’t even have to go out.”

Oh fuck. There was no way Bucky could say no to that. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a killer salesman?” he asked, then took a deep breath. “I told Steve to give me a day, so I guess turning up tomorrow morning still keeps my word.” And then the question he didn’t really want to ask, because it highlighted all the ways that this thing was never going to be exactly what he wanted. “How much for a night, then?”

Clint beamed at him. “Five hundred.”

“And that’s what that guy paid before?” asked Bucky, because like hell he was going to believe the first price Clint came out with, no matter what he said about charging the full price. “The who tied you up?”

“Nope,” said Clint, “because he paid a bondage surcharge. But if he’d just wanted the stuff you want, he’d have paid five hundred.” He shrugged. “I get if you don’t have it on you or want to do this another time, I’m just putting it out there. The neighbour’s got Lucky, I’ve got all night free, neither of us has to worry about watching out for Russian assholes anymore, and Steve won’t be looking for you until tomorrow. Seems pretty much perfect to me.”

It seemed more than perfect to Bucky. It seemed like fate. “I’ve got the money,” he said. “I, uh. I robbed Hydra. I’ve got loads of money.”

Clint laughed. “Oh man, that’s perfect. Can you imagine how pissed they’d be to know you were spending it on gay sex and rebuilding your sense of who you are?”

Bucky pictured the look on Pierce’s face. “They do say the best revenge is a life well lived.”

“Fucking me definitely comes under the category of living well,” said Clint. Jesus, if his complete lack of modesty over how good he was at fucking lined up with his confidence at blowjobs and shooting, Bucky wasn’t sure he was going to make it through the night.

What a way to go, though.

Clint nudged his foot with his. “Are we doing this?”

Bucky hesitated, torn between what he knew he should be saying, and what he really, desperately wanted to say. Fuck it, it wasn’t as if Clint wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea. As long as Steve never found out exactly why Bucky had hung around an extra night, what the hell harm would it do?

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I’m in.”

Clint actually bounced with excitement, jumping to his feet as if this was the best thing that had ever happened to him, as opposed to the best thing that had ever happened to Bucky. Bucky wondered if he was really that desperate for money, then pushed the thought to one side.

“Awesome! You’re going to have to give me five minutes to pick up my bedroom though, because I don’t bring clients here and it’s kinda trashed,” said Clint, heading for the stairs. He waved a hand back at Bucky. “Make coffee for us, yeah? Seems like I’ll need caffeine to keep up with you.”

He disappeared into his room and Bucky just sat for a moment, trying to believe this was actually happening. Fuck, what was he doing?

He took a deep breath and reminded himself that Clint had never once been anything other than enthusiastic about having Bucky as a client, and stood up to go make coffee. He knew how to do that, after all. The rest of tonight was going to be a lot more complicated.


	8. Chapter 8

It took Clint a bit longer than five minutes to tidy up, which was good because Bucky needed some time to process exactly what was happening. Holy shit, how was he meant to spend a night fucking Clint without giving away how he felt about him?

But then, what did it matter if he did? They could talk about him popping over from Manhattan to visit as much as they liked, they both knew that once Bucky walked into the Tower, he was going to be monitored far too closely by far too many people whose radars Clint wouldn’t want to be on. This was a final goodbye.

Which was why Bucky was going to use tonight to get through as many of his fantasies as he could. If this was the end of his friendship with Clint, he might as well tick off some of the things that he could have, when he was never going to get so many of the major things that he wanted.

“Okay!” said Clint, clattering down the stairs from his bedroom. “We’re all good. Gimme that coffee and we can get started.”

At some point he’d lost his shirt and his sweatpants were riding low enough to make it clear he hadn’t bothered putting underwear on, so all Bucky could do was stare as Clint downed the mug pretty much in one go, tipping his head back so that Bucky was staring at the long line of his throat as he swallowed the liquid down.

Christ. Was he even going to survive the night?

“Okay!” said Clint, setting the mug down and turning to Bucky. “Ready?”

Bucky had managed less than half of his own coffee, but he happily abandoned it. “Sure,” he said. He wondered if Clint was this eager for all his clients, or just the ones paying him half a grand, and then dismissed the thought as unhelpful. If they were doing this, he wasn’t going to fixate on how Clint was with other clients.

Or, at least, he was going to try not to.

Clint actually took Bucky’s hand to lead him up the stairs to his room. Bucky followed him, nearly tripping over the steps because he couldn’t take his eyes off the muscles of Clint’s back.

Clint’s bedsheets were purple and looked like they’d been put on five minutes ago. There was a dog bed in the corner and Bucky could see a mess of hastily-shoved clothes lurking in the shadows under the bed, but he wasn’t really interested in the details of the room, not when Clint was turning around to look at him with a bright grin and lit-up eyes.

“So, are you going to let me undress you?” he asked. “I promise not to touch your arm at all.”

“That’s actually not a problem for me,” said Bucky. “I’ve no problem with you touching it, as long as you don’t take a screwdriver to it.”

“Awesome!” said Clint, and stepped in close to unzip Bucky’s hoodie, dropping it off his shoulders to land on the floor. “Fuck, you really are very hot,” he said, sliding his hands up Bucky’s stomach underneath his Henley. Bucky had to fight not to suck in a breath at the warm touch of his calluses. “You’ve gotta know that, right? I wasn’t calling you Handsome ironically.”

Bucky snorted. “I don’t need the sweet talk,” he said. Clint’s finger grazed up over his chest, brushing over his nipples, and he gave up on the fight not to react with a sharp intake of breath. He brought his hands up to rest on Clint’s waist, curling around his hips, because if Clint got to touch then so did he.

Clint gave him a smirk that said he knew exactly what he was doing, and paused to brush over Bucky’s chest again. “Yeah, I’m not sure that’s true,” he said. “Besides, I like sweet talk.” He shrugged. “It’s your call, though, you’re the one paying.”

Bucky couldn’t help flinching at that, and then hated himself for betraying just how much he wanted to pretend that wasn’t true.

“Sorry,” said Clint. “I won’t mention that, if you don’t want.” His hands ran down Bucky’s sides to his waist, sending shivers of sensation through him.

Bucky shook his head. “No, it’s okay,” he said, but he wasn’t convincing anyone. “Okay,” he amended, “that’s not-” He took a deep breath, then took Clint’s hands and pulled them away from his waist, holding them between their bodies. “How about you just act like you would if we were just friends blowing off steam together? What you want is just as important to me.” 

Ah crap, that was too much. If Clint realised just how much Bucky felt for him at this stage, the whole night was going to be awkward, no matter how good an actor Clint was.

“I need to know you’re enjoying yourself,” he added, “or there’s no point to this. Remember what I said before, about needing to work out if what I’m doing is right or not? If we’re doing this, I want to know you’re not just doing stuff you hate. It needs to be equal.”

Clint stared at him for a very long moment before he nodded. “Okay, I guess that makes sense.”

He tried to tug his hands out of Bucky’s grip, but Bucky wasn’t stupid enough to think that was an agreement and held on tight. “So, tell me what you don’t like,” he said. “Even if it’s stuff you usually just go with, I want to know. If we were just friends, what wouldn’t you want me doing? You said pain before, what else?”

Clint stared at him for a bit longer, then sighed as if being put upon. “Jesus, okay,” he said. “We’ll do this your way. So, as well as the pain thing, I don’t much like being called names unless they’re pet names, I like being held down but not so much being tied up, and I hate not being able to see.” He hesitated, then added, “Oh, and my hearing aids, I hate people fucking about with those.”

“Okay,” said Bucky, relaxing his grip on Clint’s hands but not releasing them. “And you’ll tell me if I do anything you don’t like. Or if I’m not doing something you do like.”

“Yep,” said Clint. “We’ll do it your way, as friends. Which means I get to tell you that what I really, really want is to get my hands all over your body.” He gently tugged at his hands and Bucky let go of them, because that seemed like a damn good plan.

“Okay then,” he said, and stripped off his Henley.

“Oh yeah,” said Clint happily, and reached out to cup a hand over each of Bucky’s shoulders, then ran them down his arms as there was no difference between them. “I really don’t get how you manage to make a metal arm look so goddamn hot,” he added, stroking around Bucky’s wrists to take his hands while Bucky did his best not to shiver at the sensation of being touched so gently.

“And no lying to me either,” Bucky said, because who the hell would find a robot arm that had killed more people than Bucky wanted to think about hot?

“I’m really not,” said Clint, and he lifted Bucky’s metal hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “I kinda want to feel it all over me.” He waggled his eyes at Bucky. “ _All_ over me.”

Fuck. Bucky had asked him to be open about what he wanted, he guessed. He reached out very carefully with his metal hand, touching the spot between Clint’s collarbones where he really wanted to press a kiss, but he thought that would probably be too much. Instead, he brushed his fingers over it, feeling the slight give of Clint’s skin with the pressure sensors in his arm but nothing more. Clint sucked in a short breath, and Bucky realised that he really had meant it. He thought the arm was hot.

A shot of confidence went through Bucky and he slowly ran his hand down Clint’s chest, making sure to slide his metal fingers right down the centre of his body, over his breastbone and the hard muscles of his stomach to just below his belly button, where he rested them on the waist of Clint’s sweatpants.

“Holy fuck,” said Clint in a reverent tone. “Yeah, okay. More of that, definitely.”

“Yeah?” asked Bucky. “Guess you better take these off, then,” he said, tugging at the sweatpants.

Clint nodded, taking a step back to drop them without a second thought, then kicking them aside, under the bed with the rest of his hidden dirty laundry. He was harder than Bucky had expected, his cock curling up towards his stomach in a way that made him want to drop to his knees so that he could taste it.

That wasn’t what Clint wanted, though. And Bucky wanted to give him what he wanted. 

He set his fingers against the vein running up the underside of the shaft, and Clint made a choked noise at the same time as his cock twitched. His eyes had gone large and very dark, and Bucky had to hold very still to stop himself from just tackling the guy down onto the bed. He slowly wrapped his fingers around Clint’s cock until he was holding it in a firm grip, then pulled up.

“Oh fuck,” gasped Clint. “Fuck, that’s- Oh man, I’m gonna get precome in your joints.”

Bucky snorted and let go of Clint so he could laugh properly without risking crushing him.

“Hey!” protested Clint.

“Your fault!” said Bucky through his laughter. “C’mon, man, can you picture Hydra’s faces if they knew I was fucking up their engineering by getting come everywhere?”

Clint blinked, then he started laughing as well. “Okay, far enough,” he said. “Still, it’s not gonna be Hydra cleaning out your arm if we do fuck it up. It’s gonna be Stark. Trust me, the last thing you want is to hand him ammunition like that.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You really think they didn’t build it so it wouldn’t get clogged up with stuff like that? I mean, they weren’t thinking about come, they were thinking about blood, but it’s watertight and cleans off easily.”

Clint made a face. Great, Bucky had already managed to kill the mood, and they were less than five minutes in. “Okay, gross, but I guess that makes sense.” He looked Bucky over. “You know, you’re kinda overdressed for this party.”

“Just because you started off most of the way naked already,” muttered Bucky, but he bent to undo his boots and strip off his socks, then straightened to undo his pants.

“Oh, nope,” said Clint, darting forward to stop him. “I get to to do that. You always wear way too many layers, I want to be the one to get rid of them.”

Bucky didn’t see the excitement of that, but he obligingly moved his hands away. Clint grinned at him as he undid his zipper, then crouched to pull them down, dragging Bucky’s underwear with them.

“Oh man, look at you,” muttered Clint, looking up at Bucky as if he was something worth seeing. “So hot, seriously. These _thighs_.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Bucky’s leg, then traced a path with his mouth up to his hipbone. “So hot,” he muttered again.

Bucky was starting to get hard enough for it to ache. “You gonna do something while you’re down there?” he asked.

Clint glanced up at him with a grin. “Why, got something in mind?” he asked, shifting so his mouth was hovering closer to Bucky’s cock.

“A couple of ideas,” said Bucky, tightly.

Clint just grinned, then leaned in and pressed a kiss to the base of Bucky’s cock. “Nope, sorry, we’ve done that already, a bunch of times,” he said, and stood back up. “Time for something new,” he added, giving Bucky a wink, then turned to jump on the bed, rolling over and spreading his arms out. “Don’t you want to make use of actually having one of these? A proper-sized one that doesn’t creak alarmingly if you get too athletic?”

“Are you intending to get athletic?” asked Bucky, moving forward and sitting on the bed, and then not knowing quite what to do.

Clint snorted. “Come on, you’re, what? Some kind of super-soldier? And I was doing acrobatic tricks _before_ I became a hand-to-hand expert. Are you saying we won’t be having ridiculously athletic and flexible sex?”

A whole series of mental images passed through Bucky’s mind, and he shuddered with want. “Yeah, okay,” he said with a dry mouth. “When you put it like that.”

Clint grinned back, then reached over to his nightstand, stretching in a way that made Bucky’s eyes fasten on his bicep. He snagged a bottle of lube and a couple of condoms, then tossed them down on the bed between them. “Okay, you gave me a long list earlier, and I am completely down with all of it, but how do you want to start?”

Bucky didn’t even have to think about it. “I want to fuck you.”

“Awesome,” said Clint. “How do you want me?”

Bucky hesitated, but the image Clint had given him weeks and weeks ago, when they’d first started being friends, had stayed engraved on his mind. 

_“Lying on your back while your ass gets pounded.”_

“On your back,” he said, reaching for the lube.

Clint shifted up the bed, spreading his legs and still grinning at Bucky as if this was the best thing that had ever happened to him as opposed to something he was paid to do pretty much every night. “You know what you’re doing with that?” he asked. “I’m guessing it’s been a few decades, what did you guys even use back then?”

“Whatever we could get our hands on,” said Bucky. Clint’s grin faded into concern, and he rolled his eyes at him. “Don’t panic, I’ve got this. I have been around, you know, not to mention hanging out on a street of hookers for the last couple of months.”

Clint grabbed a pillow to prop himself up with. “You know, you’re meant to say sex workers these days,” he said as he hitched his legs up so that Bucky could crawl between them.

“As if you care what word I use,” said Bucky, resting his hand on Clint’s hip, then giving into temptation and running it down the inside of his thigh, feeling the cords of his muscles.

Clint let out a long breath, spreading his legs even further. “Yeah, okay, but I really shouldn’t be taken as a model of political correctness, not even- fuck, do that again.”

Bucky trailed his fingers over Clint’s balls again, then down, further back to trace over his hole. He couldn’t believe Clint was letting himself be this open and vulnerable with Bucky now that he knew exactly who he was and what he’d done. “Are you sure about this?”

“So fucking sure,” said Clint, pressing back against his fingers. “Come on, open me up so you can fuck me, I want to feel you.”

Bucky pressed slightly harder, rubbing a teasing circle around the rim of Clint’s hole. “Oh no, I’m not rushing this,” he said. “We’ve got all night, remember?”

“Oh god,” groaned Clint. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Nope,” said Bucky, opening the lube bottle so he could drizzle some on his hand. “I don’t do that anymore, not to the good guys.” He glanced up at Clint, smoothing over his thigh with his metal hand as he started to gently press a finger inside him. “You may want me to by the end, though,” he added.

Clint groaned, draping an arm over his eyes even as he was pushing back against Bucky’s finger, clearly trying to get him to speed up. “I shoulda guessed you’d be a damn tease.”

Bucky didn’t answer because he’d lost track of the conversation between how hot and tight Clint felt around his finger and how he looked spread out in front of him, his erection curving up and his biceps tensing as he adjusted to Bucky. Fuck, how was it legal for a guy to be that hot?

Clint let his arm fall back behind his head and looked down at Bucky, and their eyes caught for a moment. Fuck, Clint looked just as blown away to find himself here as Bucky was, how the hell did he do that?

Bucky flexed his metal hand, sliding it around to lift Clint’s leg up and give his other hand better access, and Clint bit off a moan, head falling back.

“Fuck, okay, be a tease, sure, just do _something_ ,” he said, and Bucky realised he’d been so caught looking at Clint that he’d just stopped moving.

That wouldn’t do. He wanted to see Clint taken apart and desperate. He pressed his finger further inside, crooking it just right until he found-

“Oh fucking fuck,” groaned Clint, shuddering underneath Bucky’s hand. “For an old guy you’re way too good at this.”

“Misspent youth,” said Bucky, then curled his finger again, because Clint’s reaction to that was the best thing he’d ever seen.

“Jesus,” gasped Clint. “You’re gonna give me more at some point, right? Another finger? Maybe even your cock? Please?”

Bucky couldn’t hold in a grin at how easily he’d got Clint to descend into breathless babbling, and pulled out then pushed his finger back in again, making Clint bite hard at his lower lip. “Sure. In time.”

“Oh god,” muttered Clint.

Bucky ran his hand down Clint’s leg and across his stomach as he kept stretching him open with the other one, watching the way Clint’s stomach muscles quivered under the touch of metal.

“You really do like this hand, huh?”

“You have no idea,” muttered Clint, glancing down at it. “I don’t even know why, it’s just -fuck- so fucking sleek.”

“Huh,” said Bucky, considering that. He hadn’t really thought much about his arm since he’d started getting his memories back, other than the need to hide it. It felt like the least of his problems, really. Now, he was beginning to think it wasn’t a problem at all.

He pulled his finger out and then pressed back in with a second one, going slowly as Clint squeezed his eyes shut and choked out a groan. He was hot and tight inside, and Bucky was finding it hard not to think about just how good he was going to feel around his cock.

“So,” he said, as conversationally as he could when he was watching the best live porn he’d ever seen, “how do you think you’d like it if I swapped hands?”

He curled both fingers over to press against Clint’s prostate as he said it, because it felt like a weird line to be crossing and he wasn’t sure Clint wouldn’t freak out.

“Oh god,” cried Clint, shuddering, “Oh god, that would be fucking hot as hell, please do that, you said it was wipe clean, we can totally do that.”

Fuck, watching Clint react like that to just the idea sent a surge of want to Bucky’s dick, which was already hard enough to pound nails. “Are you sure?” he asked, scissoring his fingers to open Clint up a bit further, because his metal fingers were thicker than his normal ones. He ran his metal hand down Clint’s stomach to cup around his cock, not quite gripping it because he didn’t want to get him too close to the edge, but holding it tight enough for him to feel.

“God yes! So fucking sure!” said Clint. He shifted up onto his shoulders so that he could press up against Bucky’s hand. “Please.”

There was no way Bucky could say no to that. He fucked into Clint with his normal fingers a few more times, then pulled out so that he could spread lube over his other hand, probably using too much but he figured this was one where he definitely wanted to err on the side of caution.

“Oh fuck,” muttered Clint. “This is really happening.”

Bucky looked up to see a completely mindblown look on his face and had to take a deep breath, because that was him. He’d managed to put that expression on Clint’s face. There was no way this was part of the act Clint put on for his clients, because there was no way anyone could fake being that turned on.

“I’ve not done this before,” he said. “The minute it hurts, or just feels wrong, or-”

Clint was already nodding. “Yeah, yeah, don’t worry, I’m not about to risk an injury, no matter how hot this whole thing is.” He nudged his hips up pointedly. “C’mon, do it.”

Bucky pressed his finger gently against Clint’s hole, and Clint sucked in a very long breath.

“Aw, fuck,” he muttered, “yeah, that’s- Come on.”

As if Bucky was going to give in that easily. He rubbed his finger in a little circle and Clint actually let out a whine, then glared at Bucky as he snorted a laugh.

“Fucking _tease_ , you-” he said, then broke off with a choke as Bucky pressed inside in a slow, firm move, watching Clint’s face intently for any sign of pain or discomfort.

There was nothing on it but pure bliss though. Wow, the guy really did have a thing for Bucky’s hand. He wondered if he had a box of metal dildos somewhere if that was his kink, and for a brief moment considered getting him one for Christmas before he remembered that this was the last time he was going to see Clint so he wouldn’t have the chance to get him any presents.

“Oh my god,” said Clint in a slow, awed tone. “Oh god, James, this is- Fuck. Have you done this? Fingered yourself with it? Oh fuck, no, don’t tell me, I’ll start imagining it and then I’ll come because that’s so fucking hot, shit, this whole thing is.”

Bucky snorted. “I actually haven’t,” he said, pulling out and then pushing back in faster, which made Clint make a tiny noise in his throat. “It didn’t really occur to me.”

He couldn’t feel nearly as much from this hand as he could the other one, but the way Clint was starting to push back into it with helpless little hitches of his hips, and the white-knuckled grip of his hands on the sheets, were making him think that maybe he should be trying it. Or maybe just spending hours and hours fingering Clint like this, until he was wrung out with begging and need.

Crap, one night wasn’t going to be long enough for everything Bucky wanted, not even close.

Clint’s breathing had started to pick up, hitching in his chest with every movement of Bucky’s finger. “You want another one?” he asked, and Clint just groaned.

“Oh god, yes,” he said. “Please. And then you’re going to need to fuck me because too much of this and I’m definitely going to come.”

“Maybe I’ll fuck you after you’ve come then,” said Bucky, pulling his hand out so he could add more lube, because he really wasn’t taking any chances on this one. “While you’re exhausted and boneless and can do nothing but take it.”

Clint drew in a deep breath. “Christ, why didn’t they warn about your filthy mouth in the history books?” he asked. “We can definitely do that if you want, I am completely okay with that, but-”

He stopped and his mouth twisted unhappily. Bucky paused. “What?”

Clint looked at him, then let out a huff of laughter that didn’t contain much amusement. “I’m not used to what I want being much part of this kinda thing, but you did say you wanted us to do this as friends, so-”

“Yes,” said Bucky. “I do. What do you want?”

“I want to come with your cock in me,” said Clint, giving Bucky a direct, almost challenging look that nearly made Bucky come right there.

“Oh,” he said, imagining that, how Clint would feel tensing around him as he came. “Yeah, yes. I want that too.”

Clint grinned. “Awesome,” he said, then nudged at Bucky with his heel. “Come on, then. Drive me out of my mind with your fingers, then fuck me until I lose it completely.”

“Jesus,” said Bucky. “And you accused me of having a dirty mouth.”

“Hey, I get paid to have a dirty mouth,” said Clint. “What’s your excuse?”

Bucky started to press inside him with two fingers before answering that, which made Clint moan and grasp at the bedsheets again, tipping his head back as his eyes fell shut.

“Guess I’ve just been around,” said Bucky, pushing inside Clint slowly, doing his best to be careful, because Clint was so tight around his fingers, his muscles squeezing enough for the pressure sensors to register it as almost too much.

It definitely looked like it was almost too much for Clint, as he arched his back up into it, pressing back on his shoulders as he let out a series of tiny, desperate moans that made Bucky’s cock jump. Fuck, putting aside whether or not Clint was about to come, if Bucky didn’t get inside him soon, he wasn’t going to make it either.

He bent his fingers inside Clint just the tiniest amount, and Clint nearly jumped off the bed, letting out a cry that almost had Bucky panicking he’d hurt him before he started babbling again.

“Oh god, yes, that, just like that, do it again, please, James.”

Bucky did it again. The reaction was just as good, and he grinned at Clint. Fuck, this was an image that he was going to keep with him no matter what happened. If Hydra tried to take this from him, he’d destroy everything around him.

“You can, quit looking so damn smug, any time,” panted out Clint, which would have been more effective if Bucky couldn’t see just how hard he was, precome beading at the tip of his cock and the faint sheen of sweat shining on his skin.

Fuck, he really did need to fuck him soon.

“Hey,” Bucky said, “Hey, are you ready for my cock, or do you still want more of this?”

He crooked his fingers again as he said it, which probably wasn’t entirely fair, but Clint’s reaction every time was so good that he just couldn’t resist.

“Fuck,” gasped Clint. “Fuck, fucking, you’re an asshole, I fucking love it, I need you to fuck me, come on, get your cock in me, do it.”

There was no way Bucky could resist that. He pulled his fingers out, probably faster than he should have, but the breathy noise Clint made didn’t sound as if it hurt. Bucky wiped his fingers off on the sheets then curved his hands around Clint’s hips, settling in closer between his legs.

“Condom,” said Clint, waving vaguely towards where he’d thrown the packets earlier.

Right. Bucky reached out for one, even though he really didn’t want to. This was the one thing Clint made clear was non-negotiable to his clients from the beginning, Bucky wasn’t going to be an asshole about it.

After he’d rolled it on, Clint gave him a smile, then spread his legs even further, pulling up his knees. And there was another image that Bucky wanted to take a photo of so that he could keep it with him always.

Instead, he settled in closer, pressing the tip of his cock against Clint’s hole and feeling it start to give before he paused again.

“Aw, come on,” said Clint, flexing back against him. “Are you waiting for me to be as old as you are?”

Bucky snorted. “Just wanted to check you were okay with this geriatric fucking you.”

“So okay,” said Clint immediately. “No other geriatric I’d want to fuck me more. Now come on!”

Bucky took a deep breath, and gave him what he wanted.

Pressing inside Clint felt even better than his many fantasies about it had been. He wasn’t just hot and tight, but he also let out a gasping groan that almost sounded relieved, as if he’d been worried Bucky wouldn’t follow through, and hitched his hips up to just the perfect angle for Bucky to slip inside all the way, until his cock was completely surrounded by Clint. He leaned in close, setting his arms on either side of Clint’s head so that they were pressed together all along their bodies. God, nothing Bucky could remember doing back in the forties came close to how good this felt.

“Fuck, James,” said Clint, reaching up to wrap his arms around Bucky’s shoulders. “God, you feel good.”

Bucky let out a long, slow breath, pressing his forehead against Clint’s shoulder for a moment to try and gain control over the maelstrom he was feeling, but he didn’t think he was going to manage that while they were pressed this close. “Fair warning,” he said, “I ain’t doing this slow and gentle.”

“I really don’t want you to,” said Clint, and he pressed up into Bucky’s cock again. “C’mon. Fuck me.”

Bucky didn’t need asking twice. He pulled out and pushed back in with a fast snap of his hips, and Clint let out a cry, then clutched harder at his shoulders.

“Yes, like that,” he said. “Exactly like that.”

Bucky did it again, and then again when all Clint did was moan. Clint had his eyes shut again, his head tipped back and, fuck, his mouth was _right there_. Bucky wanted to kiss it more than anything, get inside it with his tongue the way he’d got inside Clint’s ass with his cock, and just take everything Clint was offering up to him, but that wasn’t part of what Clint was offering. Bucky knew enough from listening to the other sex workers on Spitzer Street that kissing was too intimate for most of them, unless they were getting paid special for it.

Instead, he dropped his head down to press his forehead to Clint’s shoulder where he couldn’t be tempted, and just concentrated on fucking him as hard and fast as he could, until the moans were just punching out of Clint’s lungs and Bucky could feel him starting to shake.

Hell, he was starting to shake, hanging on by a thread as he pushed into Clint again and again, determined to last as long as he could, to at least make sure that he didn’t come before Clint did.

“Oh god,” muttered Clint. “Oh god, oh god, James, I’m close, I’m so close-”

Bucky pulled back from him just enough to get his hand in between their bodies, wrapping it around Clint’s cock and only realising after he’d done it that he’d used his metal hand without thinking.

Clint made a noise as if he were swallowing his own tongue, then just came apart, cock pulsing as he came with a cry that might have been Bucky’s name, or might just have been a nonsense garble.

The feel of his muscles tensing around Bucky, combined with the look on his face of mindless pleasure as he let himself go, was enough to drag Bucky to the brink. He fucked into Clint twice more, with sharp, hard movements, then came, pressing his face back into Clint’s neck.

“Oh man,” said Clint, in a hoarse voice. “Jesus.” He patted vaguely at Bucky’s back as Bucky just breathed into his skin and wondered if he’d ever be able to move again. “Kinda feels like I should be paying you for that.”

The reminder of what this really was was like a bucket of cold water over Bucky’s head. He pulled away from the irresistible warmth of Clint’s skin, easing back out of him as Clint let his legs relax to the bed as if they’d had their strings cut. “Funny, I was just thinking that I should be paying you twice as much.”

Clint looked completely relaxed, sprawled out with his usual bright grin edged with satisfaction. Bucky removed the condom and chucked it at the trash can, then collapsed next to him, staying on his side so that he could see Clint’s face.

“There’s always the tip,” said Clint, letting his eyes fall shut for a moment.

Bucky thought of the bag of cash he had sitting downstairs. “I don’t think you’re gonna be complaining about that.”

Clint rolled his head to stare at him. “Oh no, come on, that was a joke.” He smirked. “You’ve already given me all the _tip_ I want.”

Bucky groaned. “Oh man, I’m too fucked out for bad jokes.”

“No such thing,” said Clint. “Also, hey, you kinda promised me a whole night of debauchery, don’t tell me you’re already exhausted?”

“Not a chance,” said Bucky. “Just taking a breather before I decide what I want to do next.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Or you can let me know what you want to do. I’m open to suggestions.”

“Hmmm,” said Clint, thoughtfully. “I can probably come up with some ideas.”

He’d sweated enough for his hair to be a damp, sex-tussled mess and he was so relaxed that every muscle was slack. Bucky wondered how this guy could keep getting hotter, and then had to stifle the urge to kiss him for the hundredth time. Just a soft press of lips to convey just how happy Bucky was right now, and how glad he was to have Clint with him when he looked like that, but that was probably even less welcome than a steamy kiss in the heat of the moment as they both came.

He took a deep breath. “You got any water up here?”

“Uh,” said Clint, glancing around as if a glass would just appear. “No.”

“Okay then,” said Bucky, forcing himself to sit up. “Want anything else from downstairs?”

“Nah, I’m good,” said Clint, and Bucky got up and walked out without looking back, which felt like one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

Filling two glasses of water, then draining one down and refilling it, felt like enough time to cut through the raw emotion that was threatening to drown him and get his head back on straight. This was just sex, and he needed to get better at putting distance between it and his feelings for Clint.


	9. Chapter 9

When Bucky got back upstairs, Clint had propped himself up against a stack of pillows but was still just as naked. Bucky took a deep breath at the sight, but didn’t let himself stop to stare. He handed Clint his glass of water, then sat down where he could face him.

“You feeling okay?” he asked, because it felt like he’d got a bit rough there at the end.

“More than,” said Clint, in between gulps of water. “That was fantastic, honestly. I don’t think you need to worry about not getting that part of yourself back after all the shit you’ve been through, because no one sane’s going to complain about being with a guy who can fuck like that.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, stretching out his leg so he could lightly press his toes into Clint’s thigh in a gentle version of a kick. “Yeah, it isn’t really the kinda stuff I’d be in complete control of that I‘m worried about.”

Clint gave him a considering look. “You’re worried that they’ll want to be on top, and you’ll freak out.”

That was exactly what Bucky was worried about, along with a few other things he couldn’t say right now, like that he was never going to meet anyone who came close to Clint, and that he was going to spend the rest of his life pining for a sex worker he couldn’t even go see without ruining his life.

“Okay, then that’s what we’ll try next,” said Clint. He took one last gulp of water, then set the glass down on the nightstand. “You said before not to restrain you or touch your head. What other triggers should I know about?”

Bucky considered. “It’s not restraining all of me,” he said, “it’s mostly just my head. I mean, it wouldn’t really matter how hard you tried to hold me down, I’d still be strong enough to get free. I wouldn’t want handcuffs or ropes or anything like that.”

“No, nothing like that,” said Clint. “That’s kinda advanced studies, let’s stick to the Sex 101 stuff that most people won’t really think about discussing before they do it.” He shifted over to one side and gestured at the bed. “Lie down. Let’s give this a try. Anytime you need me to move, just say and I’ll be gone before you know it, okay?”

“Okay,” said Bucky, shoving down the fear that he was going to lose it and end up hurting Clint. This was Hawkeye, after all. If he was going to test out his limits, a top level ex-SHIELD agent was probably a good person to do it with.

He lay down, feeling weirdly awkward about his nudity in a way he hadn’t been when they were just sitting and chatting.

Clint eyed him for a moment, then huffed out an amused sound. “You really are unfairly handsome, you know.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “And you’re the hottest guy I’ve seen since Gary Cooper, but you don’t hear me going on about it all the time, do you?”

“You could if you wanted,” said Clint, moving down the bed to rest a hand on Bucky’s hip. “And don’t think I won’t be googling who that is later to make sure he actually was hot.”

“He was hot,” Bucky assured him. “My sister used to keep pictures of him from magazines.”

“Well, just talking about him is making you hard,” said Clint, reaching out to trail his fingers over Bucky’s cock, which was half-hard now, but not because of Gary Cooper.

“Sure, that’s my hazy memories of some guy who’s been dead a few decades doing that, and not at all the naked guy touching me right now.”

Clint laughed. “Yeah, that seems legit,” he said, then knelt up. “Just, say something rather than hitting out, yeah?” he asked, and swung his leg over Bucky’s hips until he was straddling him.

He looked so good like that, his body one long line from his thighs, up his stomach and chest to his shoulders, that Bucky couldn’t even speak for a moment.

“Yeah, that’s not going to be a problem,” he managed eventually. His hands had gone to rest on Clint’s thighs without him even realising, stroking up and down them so he could feel the rough brush of the fuzz of hair covering them. “This is, uh. Fine.”

“Yeah?” asked Clint with a smirk that said he knew exactly what this was doing to Bucky. He shifted back a tiny amount, just enough to rub his ass against Bucky’s cock. “Guess it feels like you might be right. Like maybe having me ride you isn’t going to cause you any problems.”

Bucky tugged in a sharp breath. “Yeah, I could go for that,” he said, his skin tingling at the idea. He was properly hard again now, pressing against Clint’s ass and desperate to get back inside it again.

“Awesome,” said Clint, and leaned over to grab another condom and the lube. “So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to do all the work, okay? You just lie there and take it, and let me know if anything starts pinging off any trauma at all, yeah? I don’t know that I’ll be able to get it up again this quickly but you clearly aren’t having any problems, so this is all going to be about you, okay?”

“Okay,” said Bucky, because just hearing Clint talk about it was turning him on too much to string a proper sentence together.

Clint grinned at him and gave him a thumbs up, because apparently that was the kind of guy Bucky had fallen for, then ripped open the condom, moving back so he could roll it on Bucky. He smeared lube over it, which made Bucky draw in a deep breath and shut his eyes. Fuck, just lying here while Clint did whatever he wanted to him was so much hotter than he’d have figured if he’d thought about in advance. And it was nothing like anything Hydra had done to him because, for one thing, Clint was still grinning at him as if this was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He shifted forward again, kneeling up and reaching back to take hold of Bucky’s cock to steady it as he carefully sank down onto it.

Oh fuck.

Fuck, Bucky wasn’t going to last long at all, Jesus Christ, how was he already so close when he’d come less than fifteen minutes ago?

“Oh, yeah,” groaned Clint as he lowered himself down, thigh muscles working hard. He looked beatific as he settled down against Bucky’s hips with his cock deep inside him. “God, James, you feel so good.”

“ _I_ feel good?” said Bucky, because he felt completely surrounded by Clint like this. The feel of Clint tight around his cock was almost secondary to how it felt to be stretched out for him while Clint used him for his own pleasure.

God, this was nothing like Hydra, why the hell had he been worried? Being strapped down and experimented on was pretty much the complete opposite of lying here for Clint, letting him take all he wanted while knowing that it was never going to come close to how Clint made him feel. 

“Okay,” said Clint, “okay, that’s- yeah. That’s good.” He rose up and sank back down, groaning at the feel of it, and Bucky felt like his eyes were going to pop out his head at just how good the view was. He ran his hands up Clint’s thighs again, unable to stop himself tightening his grip as Clint rose up again.

“Ah, no,” said Clint, taking hold of Bucky’s hands. “That’s not-” He looked at Bucky, raising an eyebrow. “You’re stronger than me, you can break my grip any time.”

Bucky didn’t really have the brain power to work out why he was talking about that. “Sure,” he agreed, hitching his hips up in a hopeful manner.

Clint just smirked, then picked Bucky’s hands up from his thighs and leaned forward so he could hold them down against the mattress instead.

The new angle felt so good that it took Bucky a good few seconds to realise he was being held down, and then he was distracted by Clint moving up his cock again, fucking down onto it with a grunt that sounded torn out of him. “Ah, fuck,” he said, breathlessly. “So good, James. So fucking good.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky, because what the hell else was he going to do? He wasn’t about to break Clint’s grip and ruin this, and he wasn’t even sure he wanted to anyway. He wanted Clint to be able to get whatever he wanted from him, to get to just enjoy himself without worrying about whatever a client wanted, because what Bucky wanted was for Clint to feel good.

“Whatever you need,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut as Clint started moving faster, fucking himself on Bucky with long strokes. “Just. Whatever. You can have it.”

Clint let out a breathy laugh. “Thanks, man,” he said. “Definitely going to take you up on that offer.” He rolled his hips in a way that pulled a groan from Bucky’s mouth and he lost track of things a bit, because with his eyes shut there was nothing but the sensations of Clint around his cock, of his hands against Bucky’s, of the noises Clint was making and the sound of their bodies moving together. 

It was getting too much so he opened his eyes, but the open-mouthed, heavy-lidded look on Clint’s face was even more overwhelming, especially when he realised that Clint wasn’t just hard again, he was hard enough to be dripping precome.

“Ah, fuck,” said Bucky, flexing his hands underneath Clint’s grip but not moving them. “Are you going to come again?”

“No,” said Clint, through what sounded like gritted teeth. “You’re gonna come, then I’m going to finger you open until you’re hard again, then fuck you, and _then_ I’m going to come, deep inside you.”

It was too much. Bucky couldn’t hear him talk like that on top of everything else, not and keep hold of himself. “Fuck,” he managed, and then was coming, thrusting up into Clint and breaking Clint’s grip on his hands as the orgasm surged through him.

“Yeah,” said Clint. “Just like that. Fuck, you look good when you come, Handsome.”

Bucky didn't have anywhere near the brain capacity needed to reply. He just lay, wrung out, as Clint let go off his hands and sat back up, then carefully pulled off Bucky's cock and moved away, collapsing on the bed.

“That was really hot,” he announced. “You're going to have to give me a minute before we get to the next part.”

“No problem,” managed Bucky, because he wasn't sure he was ever going to be able to move again, let alone get it back up.

Except this was his only chance to have this. He turned his head to look at Clint, who was curled on his side where he could look at Bucky. His cock was still hard and dark with blood. Bucky wanted to get his mouth on it.

That wasn't the plan, though. The plan was for Clint to fuck him.

It felt like the idea should have come with at least some hint of trepidation, but all he could feel was a surge of lust. Now that he’d finally gotten to know how it felt to fuck Clint, he wanted to know what it felt like to have Clint inside him. He wanted to experience as much as possible, hoard it all up so that when he was at the Tower having his mind fixed by Tony Stark, he had something to look back on, and know that he’d made someone feel good.

“Hey,” he said, summoning the energy to roll onto his side so that he was facing Clint. “You’re enjoying this, right? You’re not just pretending for the pay?”

Clint snorted. “Dude, you have a seriously inflated idea of my acting abilities. Of course I’m enjoying this, I enjoy pretty much everything I do with you. If it wasn’t my job, I would happily make this my hobby.”

Bucky couldn’t hold in a smile, but he kept his mouth shut on the instinctive urge to tell Clint that any time he wanted to do this, Bucky would happily be there, because going to Steve tomorrow was going to put a stop to that.

Clint smiled back, and it didn’t look like any smile Bucky had seen on his face before. It was gentler and quieter, as if he didn’t feel the urge to shout about his happiness in this moment with a broad grin.

It only lasted a moment before Clint was sitting up, reaching for the lube again. “Okay, are you still up for this?” he asked, holding it up. “We can do something else. Or we can wait, you look kinda like a break wouldn’t be the worst idea, and I can always just jerk off.”

“Oh no,” said Bucky. “You made promises that I really want you to keep.” He rolled over onto his stomach and spread his legs, drawing his knees up to make his eagerness clear. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got another orgasm in me,” he added.

“Have I mentioned how much I love that you’re basically the sex Energizer bunny?” asked Clint, shifting around on his knees until he was between Bucky’s legs.

It seemed like Bucky should probably feeling vulnerable with his ass in the air and Clint behind him where he couldn’t really see what he was doing, but all he felt was eager.

_I trust him,_ he thought, and had to press his face into the mattress to hide the smile, because there had been a time when he hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to trust anyone again.

“Okay,” said Clint as he clicked open the lube. “Just so I have the full picture, have you done this before? At all, either with someone else or just playing around on your own?”

Bucky turned his head so that he could see him. “Not since before the war,” he said. “But I definitely got fucked a few times back then.” He focused on his memories and tried to sort through them, then gave up. “No idea how many times though.”

“Okay,” said Clint, rubbing a hand over Bucky’s hip. “Okay, that’s cool, I can work with that.”

He sounded weirdly nervous, so Bucky added, “I haven’t done any of this stuff since before the war, but doing it with you has been bringing memories back. Solidifying things in my head a bit.”

Clint’s touch turned into more of a caress, gliding over Bucky’s hip and up across the line of his back. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Glad I could help, I guess, but seriously, you really need to let me know if anything I do brings up the wrong associations, okay? I don’t want to hurt you, or remind you of people who did.”

“Sure, but you’re probably good,” said Bucky. “They only ever fucked me figuratively.”

Clint snorted with laughter, ducking his head as he sniggered. “Oh man, I can’t believe I’m laughing at that,” he said, pressing his forehead against Bucky’s hip for a moment before he moved back.

“I can’t believe you haven’t got your fingers in me yet,” said Bucky, shifting with impatience. “Come on, you made some promises I really want you to keep.”

“Bossy,” said Clint. “I like it.” He trailed his fingers down the length of Bucky’s ass crack and Bucky squirmed at the tickly sensation. Fuck, he really wanted more.

“Come on then,” he said, and pushed back towards Clint.

A moment later a lubed finger was pressed against his hole, and he froze at the unfamiliar sensation. He couldn’t remember enough of what being fucked back before had been like, and his few memories seemed to mostly focus on the act itself, not on the preparation, so this felt like a wholly new thing.

The first careful push of Clint's finger inside made Bucky tense up with surprise at the unexpected sensation and Clint paused, rubbing his hand over Bucky's hip again.

“Keep going,” said Bucky, because it didn't feel bad, just different, and even if he didn't have the memories of how good being fucked had felt, having watched how Clint had come apart from being fingered had made him pretty eager to try it.

Clint made a huff of amusement but obeyed him, pressing deeper inside, opening Bucky up as he let out a long, slow breath, pushing back into it.

Yeah, he could definitely get to enjoying this.

“More,” he said, and Clint laughed again. 

“Yeah, I don't care how hot this is, or how hard I am right now, we're not rushing this, not if it's your first time in decades.”

He crooked his finger, hitting a spot inside Bucky that sent a shiver of sharp arousal through his body.

“Oh, fuck,” he choked out, and Clint did it again.

“Jesus, you're so hot like this,“ he muttered, quietly enough that Bucky wasn't sure he was meant to hear.

That made him feel good, because Clint might not feel the same way about him that Bucky did, but at least he thought Bucky was hot, and he wanted to have sex with him. Really wanted it, if the way his breathing had sped up was any indication. 

Bucky pressed his face into the bedsheets and just let himself feel it as Clint fucked him with his finger, his other hand still gentle on Bucky's hip.

When Clint finally pulled out and then sunk back in with two fingers, Bucky groaned at the increase and couldn't stop himself from rocking back into it. He was completely hard again, his erection pressing against his stomach and getting sticky with precome.

“Christ, after the last two orgasms, I really thought it would take you awhile to get it up again,” said Clint. “Do you think Hydra know how much money they could make marketing that serum to horny guys?”

Bucky was trying to come up with a response when Clint hit his prostate again and he lost all track of his thoughts. He definitely understood why Clint had been begging to be fucked earlier. 

“I'm definitely ready now,” he said. “Come on and fuck me.”

“Are you sure?” asked Clint, spreading his fingers inside Bucky in a way that made him realise just how great having something bigger inside him, like Clint's cock, would feel. “I still think you need more preparation.”

“Damn it, just do it already,” said Bucky. 

Clint snorted, but he was pulling his fingers out, so Bucky would let him live. “There's that suave old-timey sex talk that just melts panties.”

Bucky turned to look back over his shoulder. “If you wanted your panties melted, you shoulda said and I'da taken you dancing. Laid on the charm.”

He would bet that Clint was a great dancer, and that he'd look incredible all dressed up in a fancy suit.

“Yeah, this is more my kind of dancing,” said Clint, leaning up to open the nightstand drawer and pull out another condom. “How do you want to do this? You okay like that?”

Bucky shifted up higher on his knees, propping himself up on his forearms. He could remember being fucked like this before, in tiny attic room where they had to watch how much noise they were making. He couldn't recall the face of the guy who had fucked him, though. That had disappeared completely, along with his name, and whether or not it had been a one-off or an ongoing fling.

_I won't forget a single moment with Clint,_ he vowed to himself. This night was going to stay with him.

“Like this is fine,” he said. “Just get on with it.”

“So impatient,” said Clint, rolling on the condom and taking hold of Bucky's hips. “It's like you've been waiting for this for seventy years, or something.”

He started to press his cock into Bucky before he could come up with a comeback. All thought fled at just how good it felt to be slowly filled up, to have Clint pushing inside him, his breath hitching as his grip on Bucky's hips tightened. 

“Jesus, you're so tight,” said Clint as he bottomed out. “You sure you're okay? It doesn't hurt?”

“It's perfect,” said Bucky, because he was past the point of being able to prevaricate. “Just. Don't stop.”

Clint bent over him so that he could press a kiss to Bucky's shoulder. “No need to worry about that.”

It was such a seemingly tender gesture that Bucky was struck dumb for a moment, which was long enough for Clint to straighten again and start fucking Bucky properly, with long, steady strokes that filled Bucky up with sensation and drove everything other than the feel of Clint's cock out of his head. He rocked back into Clint's thrusts, dropping his head and concentrating entirely on the feel of it.

“Fuck, so good,” said Clint. “Fuck, James, I'm not gonna last.”

Bucky's cock was so hard that it was aching, but he didn't think he'd be able to keep his balance if he moved one of his arms to grip it.

“Touch me,” he said. “Clint, you need to touch me.”

“Yeah,” agreed Clint in a rough tone as he fucked into him again. “Yeah, fuck, definitely.”  
He leaned in closer to wrap a hand around Bucky’s cock, which changed the angle as he thrust into Bucky, making Bucky moan even before Clint started jerking him off, keeping his rhythm in time with his thrusts.

“Oh fuck,” said Bucky. “Fuck, yeah, just like that, that’s it.”

“God, you feel so good,” said Clint. “Come on, come for me, I want to feel it.”

As if Clint wanting it was enough to drive him over the edge, Bucky clenched his eyes shut and came, shooting over Clint’s hand as the orgasm shook through him.

“Oh, fuck,” said Clint, and he came a second later, the hand on Bucky’s hip tightening enough to hurt.

_Please let it bruise,_ thought Bucky wildly as his breath panted out of him, but he already knew how unlikely that was. Hydra had made sure he wasn’t going to have any marks from tonight to help him remember, once he’d walked away and would never see Clint again.

“Jesus, James,” said Clint, easing out of him and taking off the condom before he flopped down on the bed. “I’m starting to worry I’m not going to survive tonight.”

Bucky let himself fall forward, feeling as if he’d run a marathon. Every muscle was aching in the good, sweet way that meant it had been well used, and pleasure was still rolling through his body. He was covered in sweat, and he could tell his hair was a disaster, and he’d never felt better.

He turned to see that Clint was completely collapsed, sprawled out as if tidying his limbs was more effort than he could handle right now.

“Call me Bucky,” he said, once he’d managed to pull some of his brain cells back together. “All my close friends always called me Bucky.”

Clint gave him a small, sweet smile that Bucky wanted to kiss off his face. “Okay then. Bucky. You’re going to be the death of me.”

Bucky snorted, grabbing a pillow from the head of the bed and pulling it down to put under his head, rather than finding the energy to drag himself up to it. “But what a way to go, right?”

“Oh yeah,” agreed Clint happily, letting his eyes fall shut. “I’d be happy to die like this.”

Bucky took advantage of Clint’s shut eyes to watch his breathing slow down, taking in all the details of his body that he’d tried not to stare at too obviously before. He had marks from Bucky’s hands on his hips and Bucky wanted to suck at them, turn them into hickeys so that anyone else who saw him naked would know Bucky had laid claim to him.

Except he didn’t have a claim on him, not once this night was over.

He wasn’t sure when Clint tipped over into sleep, but after a minute or two his breathing had turned to faint snoring. Bucky watched him for another minute, then found the energy to sit up and snag the blankets from the foot of the bed and pull them up and over them both. A nap sounded like a great idea right now.

****

He woke up when Clint started moving and sitting up.

“You okay?” he asked, stretching out his muscles, which were still pleasantly aching. A feeling of sated relaxation had settled in while he’d been napping, and he wanted nothing more now than to reach out and wrap himself around Clint, keeping him warm and close so that he could fall asleep again and know that Clint would be right there when he woke up.

“Yeah,” said Clint, rubbing at his ears, then making a face. “Well, mostly fine, but sleeping in my aids makes my ears go kinda funny.” He adjusted them, fiddling with his ears as if he could just poke until the problem went away.

“You can take them out if you want,” said Bucky. “I don’t mind.”

Clint sent him a sharp look, and Bucky shrugged. “It’ll give me a chance to practice some of that sign you taught me,” he said, then raised his hands and carefully added, “Pizza is the best,” which had been the fourth sentence Clint had taught him.

Clint snorted. “And now I want pizza,” he said. “Jesus, I’m starving. You really wore me out.”

Bucky couldn’t keep in a smug grin at that, and didn’t bother trying. Clint rolled his eyes at him and reached his hands up to his ears. He hesitated before actually taking his aids out and Bucky realised he’d asked him for a gesture of trust that went a lot further than he normally would with a client.

_I’m not just a client, I’m his friend,_ he told himself before he could let the guilt creep in, and he raised his hands to carefully sign, “Let’s order pizza,” which had been the second sentence Clint had taught him.

Clint laughed as he completed his action, hooking the aids out and carefully setting them on the nightstand. Bucky tried to keep his thrill at the gesture off his face.

“You order pizza,” Clint signed, obviously going slow for Bucky’s sake. “I will -.”

Bucky didn’t recognise that sign, which probably meant it was nothing to do with pizza. Clint must have caught Bucky’s confusion, because he made it again, and said, “shower,” out loud.

Bucky nodded and gave him a thumbs up, then got out of bed and pulled on his underwear, because he didn’t see the point of putting on his jeans right now, not even for the sake of the pizza guy.

“Pepperoni?” he signed at Clint, which had also made its way onto the list of ‘most important ASL vocab’ that Clint had taught him.

Clint grinned and nodded as he threw off the bedsheets and stood up. Bucky found himself just staring as Clint sauntered across the room to the bathroom because even though he’d spent the last hour or so getting up close and personal with his naked body, it still had the power to take his breath away.

Clint shot him a wink as he went into the bathroom and shut the door, and Bucky took a deep breath and made himself go downstairs to order pizza rather than follow Clint into the shower.

He ordered from the menu pinned to the fridge, then found half a six pack of beer inside and pulled himself out a bottle, pinging the lid off with his metal thumb and taking a long drink. He was all too aware of the stack of bags by the front door, blaring out that he really should be leaving now, especially as it felt like they’d probably had enough sex to have worn Clint out, even if Bucky thought he probably could stand to go another round now that he’d had a nap. 

Screw it, he was paying for the whole night, he was damn well having it. Dawn was going to come too quickly, anyway.

He took his beer over to the window, checking the street for threats on autopilot. He couldn’t let himself dwell on any of his emotions right now or he’d end up just wallowing in self-pity, and there didn’t seem any point in wasting any of tonight like that.

He took another drink, eyeing two women who were walking down the street and trying to spot concealed weapons.

There was a huff of air from behind him and he turned to see Clint paused about halfway down the stairs, staring at Bucky with a dumbfounded look on his face that didn’t distract Bucky from what he was wearing.

He hadn’t even known they made purple pyjama pants with cartoon dogs on them in adult male sizes.

“Hey, anyone ever tell you that you’re hot enough to be a model?” asked Clint, starting back down the stairs. He was talking too loudly and Bucky could see he hadn’t put his aids back in, so he just raised the middle finger of his metal hand in a pointed comment on exactly why he was never going to be modelling anything.

Clint rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I think I’ve made my feelings on that arm pretty clear, and I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one.”

Bucky couldn’t imagine anyone else being as reckless about a deadly weapon made by Hydra that had killed more people than Bucky wanted to think about over the years, but he didn’t have the sign language to say that, mostly because it wasn’t about pizza.

“Pizza will be here soon,” he signed instead, because he did know how to say that.

“Cool,” said Clint, at the same time as signing it. “I’m going to get a beer, need another one?”

Bucky recognised the sign for beer, but most of the rest was beyond what they’d covered in a couple of evenings of lessons. He shook his head, holding up his mostly-full bottle as an explanation, and wondered if Steve would be able to find him some ASL lessons, or resources to help him learn on his own.

Except, after tonight he wasn’t going to need to communicate Clint, because he wasn’t going to see him again. Fuck, Bucky just kept coming up against that.

“Okay,” said Clint as he came out of the kitchen with a bottle in his hand. “So, I have a very strict ‘no sex when there’s pizza’ policy, do you want to put on a movie or something?”

Bucky considered it, but he didn’t want something to distract his attention from Clint when he had so little time left with him.

“Can you show me more sign language?” he asked, facing Clint and speaking as clearly as he could.

Clint’s yes flickered up from Bucky’s lips to meet his eyes. “You want to learn more ASL? Seriously?”

Bucky nodded, signing, “Yes,” at the same time, because Clint had shown him that one after he’d run out of pizza-related vocabulary to run through.

“Okay,” said Clint with a shrug, and he settled down on the sofa and gestured for Bucky to come join him. “Let’s see. Did I show you how to say ‘dogs are the best’?”

Bucky snorted, because he should have figured he was never going to learn any useful vocabulary, but obliging held his hands up to copy Clint’s movements.

****

After the pizza had arrived and been eaten, and Clint had run out of sentences about dogs to teach Bucky, he slumped back against the cushion and gave Bucky a long look.

“Okay, what’s the plan?” he asked. “There’s still a lot of night to go, do you want another round in the bedroom? Because that’s cool, but you should know I probably won’t be able to get it up again.”

Bucky really did, but he could tell that Clint was tired and he didn’t really have any interest in having sex with him if he wasn’t going to get to watch him orgasm again.

“How about we nap again, and maybe fit in another round in the morning?” he said, signing along with the couple of words in sign that he knew in that sentence and hoping Clint would be able to lipread the rest.

Clint grinned and gave him double thumbs up, which made Bucky think he’d made the right decision. “I am always up for napping,” he said, standing up. “C’mon and let me snuggle with you.”

Bucky stood up and followed him upstairs, going to the bathroom and borrowing a spare toothbrush while Clint changed the sheet on the bed. It felt weirdly domestic when he came out of the bathroom to find Clint propped up against a pillow, fiddling with his phone, and he had to take a deep breath to push aside the idea of going to bed like this every night. Fuck, this whole thing was a really subtle form of torture. Maybe it had been a bad idea.

And then Clint looked up and smiled at him, and Bucky knew it was a torture he’d willingly undergo if it meant he got to see that.

“Hey, do you want to borrow some PJs?” asked Clint.

Bucky rolled his eyes and stripped off his underwear, then climbed into bed naked.

“Okay, or I guess that works,” said Clint. He reached over to the lamp. “Ready?”

Bucky nodded, and Clint turned it off then settled down into the bed, rolling over to drape an arm around Bucky.

“You can push me off if you want, but I’m kind of a fan of snuggles,” said Clint.

As if there was a chance in hell that Bucky wasn’t going to wrap his arm around him in return and hold on.

“Awesome,” said Clint, sleepily, and Bucky had to fight hard not to lean in and kiss his forehead.

Clint fell asleep fairly quickly but Bucky lay awake, listening to his slow, relaxed breathing and wondering what kind of an idiot fell asleep this trustingly in bed with Hydra’s star assassin. If Clint had read his file then he’d know just how deadly Bucky was, but he’d let himself just drift off in his arms. Somehow, it felt a lot more intimate than all the sex they’d had. 

Bucky spent the next couple of hours hoarding every moment, every tiny movement as Clint shifted in his sleep, every snuffling snore and deep, slow breath as he slept. In the dark, it was all too easy for him to pretend that this was more than it was, that Clint was here because he had feelings for Bucky and not because he was being paid, and that it was going to last. God, Bucky wanted it to last so much.

He never did get what he wanted, though.

When Clint’s breathing changed, he was lying half on Bucky’s chest, face pressed into his shoulder as Bucky ran a hand softly up and down his back, memorising the feel of his muscles under the skin. He paused his hand as Clint’s breathing sped up, then he let out a sudden snort and startled awake, head lifting up as if there was anything to see in the dark room other than shadows.

“Fuck,” he muttered, pulling away and rolling over. “Fuck.”

“Okay?” asked Bucky, before he remembered that Clint couldn’t hear him, and couldn’t see his lips moving in the dark. Instead, he carefully reached out to touch Clint’s arm, which was tense enough to be shaking, and gave it a rub that he hoped conveyed that he was there if Clint needed anything.

“Fuck, sorry, didn’t meant to wake you,” said Clint, his voice weird and discordant in the calm of the night.

Bucky rubbed his arm again, because there didn’t seem much else he could do, then tapped out ‘okay’ in Morse code.

Clint let out a long sigh, and then rolled back into Bucky’s arms, settling in as easily as if he’d never left. “I fucking hate nightmares,” he murmured, almost too quietly to hear.

Bucky could relate. He wasn't sure what to do to make Clint feel better. When he had a nightmare, all he wanted to do was crouch in a corner with a knife out until he was sure no one was coming after him. From the way Clint was cuddled into him, he had a feeling he wasn't the same.

Tentatively, because he wasn’t sure it would be welcome, he set his hand on the small of Clint’s back. Clint let out a sigh and just melted into him, which was enough to encourage Bucky to stroke up his spine.

“Thanks,” said Clint, in a low, rough voice, then he pressed his face into Bucky’s neck, drawing in a damp-sounding breath. “Fuck,” he muttered again, and Bucky just kept stroking over his back, wishing there was more he could do.

He could feel Clint taking deep, grounding breaths, air huffing against Bucky’s skin, and he stared up into the dark and carefully packaged this moment up with all the others from this evening that he wanted to hang on to, because he didn’t just want to have Clint when he was happy and grinning, or even just when he was doing something sexy as hell. Bucky wanted to have these moments as well, the hard, quiet moments in the middle of the night, when Clint just needed someone to hold him.

Fuck, Bucky wanted it all, and he was going to have none of it.

“Jesus, I’m just being a mess all over you,” muttered Clint, but he didn’t pull away like Bucky was scared he would. Instead, he cuddled closer, throwing a leg over Bucky’s hip so that he was pretty much on top of him.

Which meant he noticed the effect that being pressed this close to Clint had had on Bucky’s cock. He felt vaguely bad about it, but with the only layer between them Clint’s thin pyjama pants, he wasn’t sure he could have expected anything else from it, especially not when he was being allowed to get his hands all over Clint’s skin.

Clint froze for a moment, then snorted. “You really are just ready to go all the time,” he said. “That’s pretty impressive.”

He shifted, and Bucky thought he was going to move away and was schooling himself not to grab on and keep him close, but instead Clint moved in closer, pressing his thigh to Bucky’s cock and giving a careful push that put exactly the right kind of pressure on it and made him groan, deep in his chest.

Fuck, this wasn’t right, Clint had just had a nightmare, there was no way he was actually interested in having more sex now. He was only doing this because he thought it was part of having been paid for the night.

Bucky didn’t want anything from him that he wasn’t eager to give. He reached down and held Clint’s hips still, even if it killed him to do so.

Clint stilled, then sighed. “Okay, alright,” he muttered. “If you don’t want to do this now, that’s fine, but-” He hesitated, then added the rest in a rush, words tangling together so closely that it took Bucky a moment to untangle them, “I want to do it, I want to wash away the bad shit with something really good.” The final word was added so quietly that Bucky wasn’t sure he’d have heard it if his hearing hadn’t been enhanced. “Please.”

Fuck, there was no way that Bucky could say no to that. He let his hands slide lower, across Clint’s ass so he could pull him in tighter against him, and Clint let out a shaky exhalation. “Fuck, yeah,” he muttered, and started moving, dragging off his pyjama pants at the same time as he shifted properly on top of Bucky, fumbling at both until Bucky started to help.

It was too dark to see much of anything, but that only made the feel of Clint’s cock pressing against his more vivid, especially as he could feel it growing harder when Clint rolled his hips to thrust them together.

“Oh, fuck,” muttered Clint. “Hey, hey, if you want me to stop just tap me on the shoulder, yeah? Otherwise, I’m just going to-” He thrust again, and Bucky couldn’t hold in a groan, which echoed the one Clint let out at the same time.

Bucky couldn’t stop running his hands over Clint, smoothing over the line of his shoulders and then down his back, feeling every muscle shift as Clint continued to thrust against him, until he was cupping his ass and helping to pull his hips in as they moved together.

“Fuck, yeah, just like that,” muttered Clint. “Come on, just- No fancy stuff, yeah? We can just-” Bucky pushed up into the rhythm of his thrusts and Clint lost the rest of hs sentence in a gritted out swear word. He wondered if it was because Clint couldn’t hear himself that he was talking so much, or if he was already turned on enough to descend into babble. Either way, it was turning on Bucky almost more than the feel of Clint’s whole body rubbing against his every time he thrust forwards.

Almost.

It was only when Clint moaned into the next movement of their bodies, pressing his face into Bucky’s neck again, that he realised he could say just about anything now and Clint wouldn’t hear it.

He could tell him anything.

They had settled into a rhythm now, Bucky thrusting up as Clint rolled his hips down, sweat slicking the way as they rubbed together, and the way it felt on his cock, trapped between their bodies and pressed right up to Clint’s, was almost secondary to how Clint’s skin felt against every inch of Bucky’s. It felt like there wasn’t a single bit of distance between them.

“You feel so good,” he murmured. “Clint, this feels so good. Having you like this.”

“Fuck, just there,” muttered Clint, running his hands down Bucky’s sides to curl around his hips, holding on as if Bucky had any intention of going anywhere.

“I want to have you like this every night,” whispered Bucky, letting the words drop out of his mouth as his eyes clenched shut against the dark. “I want to just be with you every night, Clint, god, you feel so good.”

“Yeah,” muttered Clint, pushing into Bucky again, adjusting the angle so that the pressure on Bucky’s cock made him suck in a tight breath. Fuck, how was he already this turned on?

How was Clint? He could feel precome slicking the way between them, and he knew it wasn’t all coming from him. Clint was groaning with every thrust now, holding on to Bucky’s hips hard enough to hurt, but in a good, aching way that Bucky wanted more of. He grabbed tighter at Clint’s ass, trying to pull him closer even though it wasn’t really possible. He wanted to rub against every part of him, he wanted to sink down into his skin, into his chest, the way that Clint had sunk into his.

“God, you’re perfect,” he said, making himself loosen his grip with his metal hand so he wouldn’t leave bruises. “You’re so perfect, Clint, at everything. Perfect for me.”

“Fuck, Bucky, I need to- Need more,” said Clint, and he let go of Bucky with one hand, pulling away just enough to fit it between them, where he could take both their cocks together in one large, calloused hand, and stroke them together in a way that made Bucky’s mind white out, all thought lost to the the sensations running through him.

“Oh god, oh fuck, Clint,” he heard himself gasp as he grew impossibly hard. “Fuck, I love you. I love you.”

He came a moment later, spilling out over Clint’s hand and shaking with how good it felt.

“Jesus,” Clint said, then pulled away, letting go of Bucky’s cock. Bucky could heard the fast, frantic sound of jacking off, then a moment later more come was spilling out over his belly, mixing with his. Marking him up.

“Oh, yeah,” said Clint, long and slow, and then he was falling back down to rest on Bucky again. “That was good, thanks.” He pressed a kiss to Bucky’s neck and Bucky felt himself flinch under it, because he wanted a kiss so desperately now, a proper kiss, slow and languid as they both settled in to go back to sleep.

God, he wanted every kind of kiss from Clint.

Clint let out a long sigh, relaxing on top of Bucky like some kind of blanket, boneless and soft. Bucky felt his heart swell with emotion and wrapped his arms around him, letting himself hold him close. He was going to have to go soon, he could let himself have this indulgence.

“Oh man, and now we’re all sticky,” said Clint, with a sigh, which was pretty rich from the guy who had come all over Bucky. His words were slurring like he was already falling asleep, so Bucky fumbled out with one hand to snag Clint’s discarded pyjama pants, then shifted Clint up enough to wiped them both as clean as he could be bothered with, before dumping them on the ground.

Clint settled right back on top of him afterwards. “Good thinking,” he said, rubbing his head against Bucky’s shoulder like a cat looking for affection. “You’re the best.”

Bucky couldn’t help snorting at that, but he doubted Clint even noticed the movement of his chest. He held still, stroking over Clint’s shoulder in slow, lazy circles while Clint fell back asleep.

There was no way he was falling asleep tonight. He was going to hoard every press of Clint’s skin against his, every breath whispering over his neck, every sleepy murmur as Clint shifted into a better position.

And as soon as the sky got light, he was going to get up and leave.

****

He couldn't bring himself to move for nearly ten minutes after he couldn't deny the pre-dawn light spreading over the sky. Eventually, he forced himself to move so that he wouldn't still be here, covered by Clint's warm, sleeping body, when lunchtime rolled around.

He carefully moved Clint off him and onto the bed, where Clint made a grumbling noise and hugged the pillow, but didn't wake up.

Bucky headed to the bathroom, where he cleaned himself up as best he could and used the spare toothbrush again, then went back to the bedroom and pulled his clothes on. Clint was still fast asleep, and it was light enough for Bucky to see just how relaxed he looked.

God, he wanted to crawl back into bed with him.

He couldn’t stop himself from stepping closer, hovering over Clint in a way that probably put him firmly in the ‘creeper’ column. This was going to be his last chance to look at Clint, he might as well take it.

He couldn’t help remembering how it had felt to say ‘I love you’ to him, out loud so that the universe could hear it even if Clint couldn’t. God, that had felt so good. He wanted to say it every day, and get to see Clint smile when he did.

Clint let out a longer breath, shifting slightly, and Bucky froze. God, fuck knew how Clint would react to finding out that Bucky loved him. Part of Bucky thought that it couldn’t possibly be that much of a surprise after everything, but he had a feeling that Clint was too good at ignoring just how important he was to people to have picked up on it.

“I love you,” he let himself say under his breath, one last time, then leaned in and gently kissed Clint’s forehead. Not his lips, as much as he wanted to, because as much as he was apparently leaning into being skeevy right now, he wasn’t going to cross that line when he knew Clint didn’t want it.

He forced himself to walk away after that, heading down the stairs as silently as he could, even though he knew there was no chance of Clint hearing him.

In the sitting room, he pulled the bag of Hydra money out from his other bags, and set it on the coffee table where Clint would see it. He stared at it for a moment, trying to picture Clint’s reaction to finding that much money waiting for him after Bucky had crept out without saying goodbye, and decided he should probably leave a note.

He tore a page out of one of his notebooks, decided not to bother addressing it because Clint probably didn’t want his real name written down where it might get seen, and Bucky couldn’t really bring himself to use Jack, or any of the other alternatives. He knew who Clint was now, he wanted to hold onto that.

He hesitated with his pen above the page, then decided that if this was the last thing he got to say to Clint, he might as well be honest with him.

_So, you’ve probably figured that this is a lot more than $500, and probably a bit more than you usually get for a tip. Remember when I said I’d picked up some cash from Hydra? Yeah, this is it. I figured I wouldn’t need it if I’m heading to live off a billionaire’s dime, but it seemed like a lot of people on Spitzer Street could, and you seem to know pretty much everyone there, so I figured you’d know how to help them best._

_You should make sure and get something for yourself as well and no, I don’t mean something for Lucky, or pizza every night for a week. Something special, that’s gonna last longer than I did in your life._

_You’re going to last in my life, or at least the memories of you are. I’m going to be thinking back to this for a good long time. Thank you for letting me figure myself out and reclaim all the stuff I thought I’d lost. Not just the sex stuff, but getting to have a friend, getting to laugh with someone, even getting to help out and protect people, and not just be the bogeyman in the dark. Being around you helped me more than I can put into words._

_But mostly, thank you for helping me figure out that I still can feel good things, and not just hate and anger. Knowing I can love someone as much as I love you has given me so much hope that I’m going to be able to build a proper life. I guess the only regret I’ve got, is that it’s not going to have you in it._

_Putting this in writing just before disappearing out of your life is probably a dick move, but I didn’t want to go without telling you just how important you’ve been to me, and will continue to be. You’re a good guy, and whatever you’re telling yourself, you’re worth more than this life. You can help people in so many ways that go beyond a fleeting moment of pleasure. You helped me, you’ve helped half the people on Spitzer Street, and I know that you’ll use this money to help many more, in a much better way than anything I’d have thought to do with it._

_Anyway, sorry for dumping that on you. Thanks so much, for everything._

He hesitated over signing it, then just left it. It wasn’t as if Clint wouldn’t know who it was from, after all.

He folded the note and set it on top of the bag, then looked around the room one last time. He’d run out of excuses to stay here any longer. He picked up his bags, opened the door, and left.


	10. Chapter 10

The side entrance to Stark Tower was easy to find, leading down into a parking lot that was only half full. The elevator at the end had _PRIVATE_ written on it in big letters and no obvious call button, but when Bucky stood in front of it with one bag over his shoulder and the other in his hand, a red light came on and a reassuringly British voice said, “Elevator descending.”

When the doors opened, Steve was inside, looking like he was going to vibrate out of his skin with excitement.

“Hi, Stevie,” said Bucky, and Steve darted out to wrap his arms around him.

Bucky startled but held still, wondering when they should have the little talk about not making sudden movements towards him in case he ended up stabbing someone. Not right now, he figured, letting his bags fall so that he could hug Steve back.

“I got to thinking you weren’t coming,” said Steve into his shoulder.

“Told you I would, didn’t I?” said Bucky. “Just had some stuff to do.”

His grip tightened on Steve as he thought about Clint, wondering if he’d woken up yet, if he’d found the money and the note, what he’d thought as he read it. Would he be pissed that Bucky hadn’t told him how he felt earlier? Would he feel like Bucky had taken advantage? Or would he get it the way Bucky wanted him to, that he was grateful for having had the chance to know him, and love him, but he’d never expected anything more than what Clint had given him. Their friendship had done more to rebuild him than tearing down any number of Hydra bases would have.

“Needed to say some goodbyes,” he added, then had to take a deep breath to choke back the tears that were threatening now that he was here with Steve and there was definitely no way for him to go back to Clint’s apartment and curl up on his sofa with a pizza and Lucky’s head in his lap begging for a slice, while Clint grinned at him and taught him really niche ASL vocabulary.

Steve pulled away and gave him a concerned look that Bucky hoped didn’t see as much as he felt it did. “Goodbyes can be hard,” he said, then picked up one of Bucky’s bags. “Want to come and try on some hellos instead?”

Bucky snorted, picking up his other bag -his weapon bag, which he felt better for having a grip on- and stepping into the elevator. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s meet these new friends of yours, see how they match up to the old ones.”

The elevator doors closed, and they started moving up.

“I hope you’re going to like them,” said Steve, as if that was the important factor in bringing a brainwashed assassin into the world’s most secure superhero headquarters. “Well, maybe not Tony, not immediately, you have to warm up to him, but the others are great.”

He actually sounded nervous, like whether or not his old friend got on with his new friends was the point of this exercise.

“If Tony Stark can get Hydra’s programming out of my head, I’m sure I’ll warm up fine to him,” said Bucky.

Steve nodded. “He and Bruce started working on some stuff yesterday,” he said. “I don’t get any of the science, but they seemed pretty confident.”

Bucky hoped they were. He was horribly aware of what a gamble he was taking. If Stark couldn’t get the words out of his head, he was going to have to cut and run again, and he didn’t know that he could do that once he’d spent some time with Steve and remembered just how great it was to have a friend like him on your side. He’d already used all his will power to walk away from Clint, he didn’t have any left to leave Steve behind as well.

Steve cleared his throat. “So, uh. Russian gangsters?”

Bucky hadn’t been expecting that, but he figured he probably should have been. “Told you you’d find out what I was up to.”

Steve hesitated before he asked, “Were they Hydra?”

Bucky shook his head. “Nah, just assholes.”

Steve nodded, and Bucky figured that if anyone would understand taking some guys out just because they were treating people like shit, Steve would.

“You saved those women,” said Steve, and Bucky turned to frown at him.

“Women?”

“You didn’t see the news?” said Steve. “They had about twenty women locked up in the basement. The cops found them.”

Bucky felt his jaw clench, and he forced himself to relax and take a deep breath. He and Clint had saved them, they weren’t locked up and having their choices taken away from them any more.

The elevator doors opened on a large sitting room area with wide windows looking out on a view of New York. There were a handful of people scattered around the room and Bucky glanced around them, then Steve set a hand on his shoulder so he took a deep breath and stepped forward. Time to get this done.

****

“Okay,” said Stark, flicking through pages of text on some kinda blue holographic thing that Bucky really wanted to have the chance to play with at some point. “So, the infamous Winter Soldier. Two key things, obviously the brainwashing is a thing, we need to check that out, Bruce and I have a couple of scans we need to do of your brain-” Bucky couldn’t stop himself flinching at that, which made Stark’s eyes dart over to him for a moment, then back to whatever he was looking at on the screen, “-nothing painful, nothing even really invasive, just building a picture of what we’re working with and making sure it’s the same as what the files all said. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s not like we can really trust Hydra scientists to have any idea what they actually managed to do to you, best to make sure we’re not starting from false assumptions.”

He talked in one flow, barely seeming to breathe, and without looking at Bucky beyond that one sharp glance. Bucky couldn’t tell if that was a genius thing, or if he was as nervous about having his parents’ killer in his workshop as Bucky was to be there. He looked over at Steve, who had come down with them and made himself at home on the sofa, eyes not leaving Bucky as he’d sat down in the chair Stark had vaguely waved at. It was right in the middle of the room and surrounded by machinery that was making Bucky nervous, but he just kept taking slow, deep breaths and reminding himself that this was the only way to know for sure whether or not he was going to be a ticking time bomb for the rest of his life.

“What’s the second thing?” he asked.

Stark glanced at him again, then away, bringing something up on the screen and throwing his arms out, which blew up the holographic image big enough for Bucky to see. God, he really wanted one of those, that was exactly the kind of thing he’d always hoped the future would contain, not brainwashing chairs and genocide-enabling helicarriers.

“The arm,” said Stark. “I’m kinda the big name in fancy high-tech prosthesis, I really want to look that over and see if it’s as impressive as it looks, or if we can make it even better.”

The screen was showing the blueprints for it, slowly spinning a ghostly blue image of it in place. Bucky blinked at it for a moment, then frowned and tipped his head slightly. “That’s out of date,” he said. “They upgraded it at least twice after that.”

Stark tore his eyes away and actually looked at him. “Did they solve the feedback lag?”

Bucky nodded, wiggling his fingers.

“And the recalibration?” pressed Stark.

Bucky shrugged. “I have to resettle the plates if I use it for something heavy,” he said. “Or if it’s just been a few days, sometimes.”

Stark nodded. “Yeah, I can fix that. How much maintenance has it had since you went on the run?”

“I had a look over it at a base in Kentucky,” said Bucky. “That was about five months ago? They had the tools I needed, but I couldn’t keep them with me.”

He’d had to crawl out of the base through a drainage pipe and he’d only had ten minutes before the explosives he’d rigged blew, so he’d left behind pretty much everything not strapped to him.

“Okay, then I’ll do that as well,” said Stark. “Check everything over. Something that complicated needs looking at pretty often to make sure it all keeps ticking over nicely.”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, I know,” he said, because checking over the arm had been part of every mission debrief. He shrugged. “They never showed me how, though. Not for anything more than field repairs.”

“Tony,” said Steve, “keep focused.”

Stark spun around to roll his eyes on him. “I’m focused. You think I’m not focused? I’m just saying, there are two bits of appalling Hydra bullshit technology to deal with here, and I am a professional so I am going to deal with them both.”

“So it’s not at all that you hate the idea of someone having a fancy gadget that wasn’t made by you?” asked Steve and, wow, Bucky recognised that note of amused fondness in his voice. He glanced back at Stark with new eyes, taking in the way he rolled his eyes again but didn’t deny that, and the soft smile Steve gave him as he turned back to the screen.

“I’m just trying to help your old Army buddy,” Stark muttered.

“You don’t have to,” said Bucky, because he didn’t want Stark having a sense of obligation about this, not after everything Bucky had done. “I get why you want the brainwashing gone, that’s just tactical sense, but you don’t need to worry about fixing my arm up or anything. It’s not like you owe me.” He hesitated, and then decided he’d had enough of dancing around the elephant in the room. “It’s pretty much the other way around. I don’t know that I can ever make it up to you.”

Stark gave him a long, steady look, his face far more serious than Bucky had seen it to date. “Do you remember it?” he asked abruptly, and Steve tensed up, shifting forward as if he were going to stand but staying where he was.

“Yeah,” said Bucky with a dry throat, not letting himself look away from Stark’s gaze. “That one came back to me pretty quickly.” He hesitated, then added, “Along with a bunch of memories of hanging out with Howard during the war. I didn’t recognise him on the mission, but he knew me.” He took a deep breath, pushing back the memory of Howard calling his name while Bucky completely ignored him, crushing his throat in his grip without even once wondering who _Bucky_ was. “I’m so sorry.”

Stark shook his head, flicking that away as if it were irrelevant. “Don’t be sorry for things you can’t control. Just, tell me. What made them decide to do it then? Was he close to figuring them out, or was he getting in the way of them taking over SHIELD too much, or did they just decide the time was right?”

Bucky shook his head. “I didn’t get given reasons,” he said, which made Stark’s face close up, jaw clenching with frustration. Bucky took a deep breath and thought back, pushing at the edges of the memory to see if he could get anything further out of it. An image came to him of a case that he’d pulled out of the trunk and he shut his eyes, trying to pull back more about it. 

“It wasn’t just a termination, it was a retrieval mission,” he said, and he heard Steve stand up. “There was a case in the car they wanted. It was, it contained-” The memory came back with a sharp kick, and he opened his eyes wide in shock. “Serum. He’d managed to recreate the serum.”

“Super-soldier serum?” said Steve, stepping forward to where Stark was still staring at Bucky. He put a hand on Stark’s back and Bucky wondered if he thought he was being subtle, or if he just didn’t care about having a potential weakness exposed like that. Probably the former. Steve hadn’t shown any awareness yet that if Hydra did get Bucky back, everything he’d seen and heard here would go down in a debrief report, to be circulated around all the top level agents whose sole mission was to bring Captain America and his team down.

“Yes,” said Bucky, and the recovered memory was setting off others now, like a chain reaction. “Hydra - they used it on some of their Strike team members.”

Stark drew in a sharp breath. “They have other super-soldiers out there?”

Bucky rubbed at his head, desperately trying to remember. If Hydra had more Winter Soldiers, why hadn’t they deployed them in DC? Why weren’t they out there right now, causing havoc?

“They were- Fuck,” he muttered, trying to force his memory into working.

“Bucky, don’t hurt yourself,” said Steve.

Bucky snorted and looked up at him. “Don’t be soft, Stevie,” he said, then took a deep breath as the memories opened up for him, as if all it needed was for him to stop trying to push it for a moment. “Hydra couldn’t control them,” he said. “They were violent before the serum and worse after. Killed some of their handlers.” He could remember that, leading some guy to safety and wondering how they were able to turn on the guys giving the orders like that. “They had to be knocked out with gas to stop them, and Hydra decided they were too much of a liability. There’s no sense in soldiers that won’t take orders. So, they had me execute them.”

That memory came back, clear as anything. Walking around the unconscious bodies, putting a bullet in each of their brains. 

“They had you do it?” asked Steve, coming forward to put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky shrugged. “Yeah. I was their executioner, right? Who else was going to do it? They just gave me the order and pointed me in the right direction, and I put them all down.” 

Another memory came to him. The commander had told him that because he’d proved himself as the fist of Hydra, they didn’t need the others, and as a reward they’d let him eradicate them. Even back then, he’d known that was bullshit. They’d made that mistake a lot, thinking that because he couldn’t talk back, they could tell him any old shit and he’d believe it, like a six-year-old believing his parents when they told him about Santa. 

He never had. He’d kept his mouth shut, and he’d nodded when they wanted him to agree, and he’d known the real reason they’d had him do it was because they didn’t want to risk anyone else if the gas wore off faster than they thought it would. Plus, it had been a silent warning of what would happen to him if he ever disobeyed or hurt a handler.

He could remember thinking that was completely unnecessary, because he couldn’t even begin to understand how the others could have rebelled. He did everything the handlers said and there was never any chance to question them, or even to hesitate.

Stark let out a very long breath. “Okay,” he said, looking at Steve. “I hope you’re ready, because this doesn’t happen often: You were right.”

The smile that broke out on Steve’s face put paid to any lingering doubts Bucky might have had about their relationship. “I usually am,” he said, which made Stark huff with amusement. “Which part was I right about this time?”

Stark rolled his eyes. “You were right when you said I’d only need to be in a room with him for ten minutes before I’d want to fix him.”

Bucky wasn’t sure how he felt about that, because he wasn’t _broken_ , not really. Clint hadn’t thought so, anyway.

Steve beamed at Stark and walked over to kiss him. “That’s because you’re a good man.”

Stark rolled his eyes and tried to wave that off, but there was a pink flush to his cheeks.

Bucky cleared his throat. “I kinda thought that was the point of me coming here? You ‘fixing’ me?”

Stark tore his eyes away from Steve. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Definitely, we’re going to get you all sorted out so no one can make you their murder bitch any more, but I was kinda doing it as a favour for Steve before and now, well. Your sad little story plucked at my heartstrings, and now I’ll do it even if Steve pisses me off.”

Bucky glanced over at Steve, then back at Stark. “Don’t you mean _when_ Steve pisses you off?” he said, hoping he wasn’t going too far.

Stark just laughed. “Yeah, okay, I forgot you knew him.”

“Hey!” protested Steve, but he was still smiling, so Bucky just ignored him.

****

It took longer than Stark had thought it would, long enough for Bucky to settle in to the bedroom he was given, and for Stark to become Tony. He became friendly with Bruce, Sam and Rhodes, and spent a lot of time hanging out with Steve and rebuilding their friendship, which didn’t seem quite the same after everything, but was close enough to feel familiar.

The only Avenger he didn’t see much of was Black Widow. She kept out of his way, which he couldn’t blame her for. Clawing back his memories was a tricky business, but he had enough to know they had more history than he knew about.

After all the running and hiding, and worrying that he was going to end up right back with Hydra if he ran into the wrong person, things should have been great. He was safe, he had a room with actual furniture, not to mention hot water and electricity, he was working on getting the programming out of his head that made him a liability, and being around Steve was bringing back more of his memories every day.

What he didn’t have was Clint, and somehow that one thing outweighed everything else. He found himself going out onto the balcony with a cup of coffee at the same time every evening, watching the sun go down over Brooklyn and thinking about how Spitzer Street would be slowly filling up, how Clint would be settling in on his corner in one of his tight t-shirts, grinning and flirting at every guy walking past.

Watching Steve and Tony be all over each other didn’t exactly help. It felt like a physical pain in his chest to watch Steve wrap his arms around Tony’s waist and pull him back against his body, or Tony happily snuggle against Steve on a sofa, because not only was Bucky never going to see Clint again, but he’d never have any of that even if he did.

He lay awake at night, thinking about how it had felt to have Clint asleep in his arms, sprawled out over him, and had to fight back the emotions that threatened to overtake him.

He was out on the balcony with his coffee one night when Sam came out to join him.

“Nervous about tomorrow?” he asked. Tony and Bruce had finally worked out exactly how to remove the programming, and everything was in place for it to go ahead the next morning. 

Bucky hadn’t been thinking about it though, he’d been thinking about how much warmer the weather was now that they were heading into summer properly, and how Clint’s usual work outfits wouldn’t be leaving him freezing any more.

He shrugged a shoulder. “I guess if I’m going to trust anyone to fuck with my brain, Tony Stark is the guy for it.”

“True,” said Sam. He was silent for a moment, looking out over the view, then he turned to look at Bucky with a serious expression that made Bucky tense up. “Look, I get that you’ve been sticking inside the Tower because you’re worried about Hydra but after tomorrow, you won’t have to worry about that, so I wondered if you wanted to come along to the VA with me. There’s people there who I think could help you.”

Bucky couldn’t hold in a laugh, which made Sam blink and raise an eyebrow.

“Okay, not the reaction I was expecting.”

Bucky shook his head, glancing back across at Brooklyn. “Sorry, just. I had-” Shit, how was he meant to describe who Clint had been to him? “I had a pal,” he said firmly, because everything else had just been one-sided. “When I was hiding out. He was trying to talk me into going to the VA.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Well, if two of us are saying it…”

Bucky shook his head. “Nah, I’m good,” he said, because he couldn’t imagine trying to explain everything shitty in his life to someone else. It was bad enough trying to answer Tony and Bruce’s questions about the science side of what Hydra had done to him without delving into the other shit as well.

“Well, the offer’s always there,” said Sam, settling back against the railing. There was silence for a few minutes as Bucky watched the first few stars start to shine, then Sam added, in a casual voice that didn’t hide anything about his curiosity, “So, this pal. You going to go back and see him instead?”

Bucky shook his head. “No,” he said, with as much finality as he could.

Sam just nodded and left it at that, because Sam was good like that. Steve would have kept poking and chipping away until Bucky had to go hide from him to avoid letting out all his emotions about the situation with Clint in a stream of misplaced anger.

They stood in silence until it was fully dark and then Bucky went inside, taking his coffee mug to the kitchen to wash up.

He hadn’t really considered the idea of leaving the Tower. He’d kinda thought he was here under lockdown, even if no one had said anything. He wasn’t sure what to do with the idea that he could just walk out at any time.

Where would he even go? He couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t be watched, at least the first couple of times he left the place. Even if Steve seemed to have no sense of cautiousness when it came to the ex-Hydra assassin living in the room next door to him, that didn’t mean that people like Natasha and Fury wouldn’t be keeping an eye on him to make sure he wasn’t some kind of sleeper agent. With them watching, he couldn’t go back to Spitzer Street to take Clint coffee, he couldn’t pop around to Clint’s to chill out with a pizza, he couldn’t even go to the park where Clint walked Lucky every day.

Fuck, he hadn’t stopped to consider how much of his life he’d ended up building around Clint over the last few months. He didn’t really want to start all over from the beginning, but he guessed he was going to have to.

Maybe Steve would want to go out for lunch or something. That seemed like a safe start on getting a new life together, now he wasn’t a red light district bouncer.

****

The procedure didn’t hurt as much as anything Hydra had done to his brain, but it did leave Bucky feeling exhausted and sort of numb. He spent a couple of days in his room, staring blankly at the pages of books without seeing the words, just replaying the moment when Tony had tested the words and he’d felt nothing, not even a vague sense that he should be obeying him. He was his own man again. Hydra couldn’t touch him.

God, he wanted to tell Clint so badly. He wanted to tell him that he was free and see the grin Clint would give him, the way he’d be so happy for Bucky and maybe offer him a celebration blowjob discount, and-

Fuck. Bucky took a deep breath, pressing his eyes closed, because now all he could think about was how Clint’s mouth had felt around his cock and the look he always got in his eyes when he was sucking Bucky’s cock down, like he was having the best time. And that made Bucky think about that whole, perfect night they’d had together, about how Clint had given him so much but also taken what he wanted, how Bucky had managed to make him come apart just by using his metal hand, how Clint had sounded as he came inside him, and the last time they’d been together, when they’d just moved together in the dark like they were perfectly in sync, the way Clint had kissed Bucky’s neck with exhausted affection.

He took a deep breath, wondering how long he was going to be missing Clint for.

“Sergeant Barnes,” said JARVIS, “Mr Stark has requested your presence in his lab so that he can work on your arm.”

Bucky set the book down without bothering to save his place. “Tell him I’m on my way,” he said, forcing himself to stand up. At least that would distract him from thinking about Clint.

It didn’t. Tony spent four hours working on his arm while all Bucky could think about was the tone of Clint’s voice as he’d said, “It’s just so fucking sleek,” and the way he’d moaned when Bucky pressed his fingers inside him.

“Okay, I’m replacing all these sensors so you get way more feedback, not just pressure but temperature as well,” said Tony, frowning over the innards of Bucky’s arm.

So if Bucky fucked someone open with his metal fingers again, he’d be able to feel so much more of it.

He took a deep breath, reminding himself, for the thousandth time, that he wasn’t going to be with Clint like that again. He guessed he might one day find someone else who wanted that, and who Bucky wanted to be with, but he had a feeling it was going to take a long time to get over Clint.

Until then, he guessed he was just going to have to keep himself distracted. “How long have you and Steve been together?” he asked.

Tony glanced up at him, then shrugged a shoulder. “I guess that depends who you ask. I thought we were friends just having incredible sex for a bit, but it turned out Steve thought we were dating which, okay, going to a baseball game is not a date, I don’t care what anyone says.”

Going to a baseball game seemed like a pretty good date to Bucky. He was willing to bet Clint could eat a disturbing amount of hotdogs, given a chance.

“Our first proper date,” carried on Tony, frowning down as he gently moved a wire inside Bucky’s arm, “was just over two years ago.” He glanced around, then gestured at a large photo of him and Steve on one of his workshop walls. They were both in black tie, looking like they were at some fancy party, and they’d been caught mid-conversation. Steve was frowning down at Tony while Tony waved his arms wide with a look as if he were midway through a rant. “That’s it, when I found out that the idiot thought just turning up at my penthouse with beers on a Friday night meant we were dating.”

Bucky snorted. “There’s a reason I always had to get girls for Steve when we double-dated,” he said. “The guy’s just got no game at all.”

“You’re telling me,” muttered Tony.

There were a couple of other photos on the wall and Bucky squinted at them, making out Tony standing with Rhodes besides a robot, both of them looking a lot younger, and a group shot of the team outside City Hall with the mayor. Just above it was a smaller photo that it took Bucky a moment to take in.

The team were standing outside a trashed-looking shawarma restaurant, looking battered and covered in dust, and Clint was with them.

Bucky tensed and Tony glanced up. “Shit, did I hit something?”

“No, it’s fine,” sad Bucky, unable to tear his eyes away from the tiny figure of Clint in a sleeveless combat suit with a bow over his shoulder, giving a tired grin at the camera and leaning against Natasha.

God, Bucky was never going to be able to move on from him. This was it for him now. How could he ever find someone else who even came close to matching up to Clint? Tony and Bruce could take Hydra’s programming out of his head, but nothing was ever going to be able to take Clint out of his heart.

“Are you okay?” asked Tony, glancing over to follow Bucky’s gaze. “Something wrong? Shit, you’re not in love with Steve are you? That would be so awkward.”

The idea was so startling that Bucky laughed. “No way, you can definitely keep that punk.”

“Awesome,” said Tony, bending back over his arm. “Well, not that awesome, because he hogs the blankets and insists on getting up at the crack of dawn to go running, but, you know. We all have to make allowances, right?”

“Right,” agreed Bucky, his eyes going back to Clint’s picture. He wondered what allowances he’d have ended up making for him, if they could have been together. Whatever it would have been, it would have been worth it.


	11. Chapter 11

In the end, for his first trip out of the Tower without having to fear Hydra turning up and triggering him, Bucky snuck out alone.

He’d been inside for weeks, doing his best not to seem like a threat to anyone while Tony and Bruce did whatever to his brain, and then Tony fiddled around with his arm, and had been fine with it. Being inside the tower meant he was safe from Hydra and Steve was right there to talk to whenever he wanted, and it wasn’t exactly cramped when they had six floors to spread out over, not to mention the balcony and the roof. 

But the morning after Tony declared his arm completely upgraded, Bucky woke up and looked out the window at the sun shining down, and thought about Clint and Lucky playing in the park together. God, all he wanted to do was go find them, and take Lucky some treats and Clint a coffee, and get to sit with him and maybe learn some more very niche ASL vocabulary.

It felt like the tower was pressing in around him, stifling him. He took a deep breath and sat up, looking out over the view at the trees of Central Park a few blocks away. He couldn’t go to the park in Brooklyn, but he could go to a different park with his book, find a tree to sit under and pretend he wasn’t pining for Clint and his stupid dog.

Just the idea of it was enough to galvanise him into immediate action. He threw on his clothes, tucked away a couple of knives and grabbed up the first book that came to hand, then crept out to the elevator.

It didn't work quite like he was planning, because Steve came out of the kitchen with a glass of water just as Bucky tried to slink through the main lounge.

“Morning,” he said, eyes flicking over Bucky's outfit and lingering on his book. “What are you up to today?”

Bucky did his best to look as casual as possible, very aware that this was the point where he'd find out if there were any unspoken limits on his freedom. “Thought I might head out to the park.”

Steve nodded. “Sounds good, it's a nice day out there.”

Well, that answered that. Bucky tried to ignore the feeling of relief, because he hadn’t seriously thought Steve would want to lock him out. He just wasn’t used to not having his movements limited by other people yet, but he was going to get used to it. He was going to wander in and out of the tower whenever he felt like it, and eventually he’d stop having the creeping sense that someone was about to stop him.

“Want me to come along?” added Steve.

Bucky hesitated, because getting to hang out with Steve again was still new enough to be a treat every time but he wanted to have this to himself today. He wanted to go out and enjoy the day without the fear of Hydra looming over him, and then come back here to people who he knew trusted him.

“Nah, I'm good. Just going to read in the sun for a bit.”

Steve nodded. “Okay.” He paused, then added, “When you get back, we should have a talk about what your plans are now.”

Bucky felt himself tense up. “Your boyfriend getting sick of putting me up?”

Steve shook his head, taking a step forward to put a hand on Bucky's shoulder. “No, of course not. Whatever else you decide, you'll always have a place to live anywhere that I am, Bucky. And if you just want to do nothing else for a bit, just hang out and read, that's completely fine, no one's expecting anything from you. But I talked to Tony, and we had a word with Nick Fury and Maria Hill, and if you wanted to join the Avengers, there's a place for you there as well.”

Bucky just stared at him for a good few seconds. He’d never once stopped to consider that the Avengers might want him to join them, rather than to lock him up.

“You don’t need to make a decision right now,” said Steve, once it became clear that Bucky didn’t have a response for that. “Just, something to think about. If you have any questions, I’ll answer anything that’s not classified.” He paused, then gave a wry smile, “And that you don’t already know about, which is probably only two or three things.”

Bucky made himself nod. “Okay,” he said and then, because that didn’t seem like enough. “Thanks.”

Steve squeezed his shoulder then stepped back. “Have a good time,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

Bucky nodded again, mind still reeling, and headed into the elevator, waiting until the doors were shut to rub his hands over his face. Fuck, _fuck_ was it really just that simple? He could go from being a bad guy to one of the world’s greatest heroes just like that?

Clint had been an Avenger. Knowing Steve, he probably still was, because Steve didn’t give up on people, and he was probably still assuming that one day Clint would come back. 

Joining a team just because Clint was still technically on it really wasn’t a sign of good decision-making, no matter how tempting it was.

Fuck, did Bucky want to be an Avenger? Did he want to keep fighting?

It felt like he owed it to the world to try and balance out some of the evil he’d done, and joining the Avengers was probably the best way of doing that. He couldn’t help thinking about all those Hydra bases in Europe that he still hadn’t got around to taking out. If he joined, maybe Steve would okay him going on missions to take them out. Maybe Steve would come with him, or some of the others. Having back-up would be a nice change.

He remembered how it had felt to take down the Russian pimps with Clint, working together in sync. He could remember enough of fighting with the Commandos to know that it would be like that with Steve beside him, but somehow he couldn’t help picturing Clint next to him instead.

God, he’d love to get to see Clint fighting with his bow, he was willing to bet that was insanely hot.

And here he was again, thinking about Clint when the actual issue had nothing to do with him. Whether or not Bucky became an Avenger, he was never going to fight alongside Clint again.

The elevator doors opened and he stepped out into the parking lot, looking at the sun outside. He pushed aside the whole mess of thoughts to be dealt with later. Right now he was going to the park to read, because he was a free man.

****

Central Park was easy enough to get to from the Tower. It was still pretty early but the air was already starting to warm up enough that Bucky shrugged off his hoodie halfway there. He had a Henley underneath, and kept his metal hand in his jeans pocket to hide it, but it didn’t feel like anyone was paying attention.

He bought himself a coffee, then headed into the park far enough to be surrounded by nothing but green before he sat down on a bench, tipping his face back to take in the sunshine.

Yeah, this had been a good idea. If he shut his eyes and just listened to the noises of the park, he could pretend that he was back in Brooklyn and that Lucky was going to come bounding over at any moment.

He allowed himself a couple of minutes of pretence, then looked back down, cracking the book open and settling in. It turned out to be one of the books on sign language that he’d had JARVIS order off the internet for him, which didn’t help a whole lot with his goal of pushing aside thoughts of Clint, but it did at least mean he could finally learn how to talk about more than just pizza and dogs.

He started with, _do you want a coffee?_

An hour or two passed. He finished his coffee, then found himself a patch of grass to stretch out on instead of perching on the bench, enjoying the warmth of the sun as it moved up to directly overhead. It was probably too hot for most people to be lounging out in in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, but Bucky was enjoying it. It felt like the last bit of ice left behind from the cryo was finally melting, especially now that all Hydra’s programming had gone as well. He felt light and free, and only the sick weight of missing Clint was holding him down.

That was okay though, he could learn to live with that. He was going to have to, and at least he wasn’t a danger to anyone else any more. No one was going to get to use him as a weapon again.

The park was busy with sunbathers, dog walkers, joggers, and people just passing through on their way to somewhere else, taking the time to enjoy a moment of nature before they disappeared back into the concrete mess of Manhattan. Not one of them spared him a glance, so Bucky let some of his vigilance fade away, until he only glanced up when someone came within a few feet.

A dog barked nearby and he smiled down at his book, thinking about Lucky rushing over to see him. He’d told Clint not to buy Lucky presents with the money instead of himself, but he hoped he’d got him some treats or something as well.

The dog barked again and Bucky couldn’t stop himself from glancing over, because it sounded just like Lucky and he needed to prove to himself that it was just some other dog.

Except he couldn’t, because it was Lucky. He was bounding across the grass towards Bucky, and he barked again when he caught Bucky looking.

Bucky sat up, dropping his book, and glanced around, looking for-

There. Clint was there, striding after Lucky but some distance back because he was holding two coffee cups and trying not to spill them.

Bucky’s heart leapt in his chest just as Lucky arrived, throwing himself at Bucky and covering him in excited licks. Bucky automatically started to pet him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Clint as he drew closer. He was dressed in one of his tight t-shirts and a pair of ripped jeans, and there was a bag slung over his shoulder.

He kept his eyes on Bucky as he walked, looking half nervous and half determined and, fuck, how the hell had Bucky already managed to forget just how hot he was?

Clint drew to a halt in front of Bucky and offered him one of the cups of coffee. Bucky took it automatically, but he didn’t take his eyes off Clint’s face because how the hell was he actually here?

“Hi, Handsome,” said Clint with an awkward shrug. “I was kinda hoping to run into you.”

Bucky wondered if he'd fallen asleep, but this was way too kind to be one of his dreams. “What the hell? You've got to know that I'm probably being watched. I thought you didn’t want the Avengers finding you.”

Clint glanced around the park with an assessing look. “Nah, we're good,” he said, and dropped down to sit on the grass, resting one hand on Lucky's fur. “So,” he carried on conversationally, as if there were nothing more to this situation than two friends hanging out in the sun, “you left me a bag of cash and the best letter I’ve ever received, but no phone number.”

“I don't have a phone,” said Bucky, too caught on ‘best letter’ to do anything other than spout out his first thought. 

“Okay,” said Clint. “Well, I bet if you say that next to Tony Stark he'll solve that problem for you, but that wasn't really my point.” He shifted to pull a battered piece of paper out of his back pocket. “You said you love me.”

There was a note of confused hesitance in his voice, as if he thought he might have misinterpreted somehow, and Bucky immediately pushed past all his own astonishment because if Clint was actually here because of Bucky's note, he needed to know that every word of it had been the truth.

“Yeah,” he said, then cleared his throat when it came out dry. “Yeah, I do.” 

Clint was staring at him as if this was the last thing he'd expected, even with the note in his hand that had clearly been read and reread hundreds of times. Bucky felt hope leap in his chest because it looked like maybe Clint wanted this, and that was more than Bucky had ever believed he might get. 

“I did before I even knew that was still something I could do,” he added, just to make how he felt as clear as he could. 

Clint drew in a slow, ragged breath. “Okay,” he said in a low voice, looking down at the paper clutched in his hand. “Okay, awesome, that's awesome, then it doesn't matter if Nat or anyone else is watching you and sees me, because I don't want to have to stay away from you anyway.”

Bucky could barely hear the noises of the park, his whole focus on Clint as hope swelled out to fill his entire body. “What?”

Clint stroked his hand over Lucky's fur as the dog flopped over into his lap, but his eyes didn't leave Bucky's face. “The last few weeks were hard enough, so if you're okay with it, I'd like to just stay wherever you are from now on.”

“It's more than okay,” said Bucky immediately. It was the best thing he'd ever heard. He hesitated, because he had to be understanding this wrong. “Clint, are you…” 

He had no idea how to finish that sentence, but luckily Clint seemed to. 

“The thing is, I kinda love you too. And I thought I could just power through and ignore it, but it's not working, so I figured I should just give in and go with it.”

Bucky couldn't stop himself from reaching out and taking his hand, squeezing it hard enough to probably be painful. “Please tell me you're serious.”

“So very serious,” said Clint, pulling Bucky in close and leaning in to kiss him, soft and perfect and far more eloquent than any note Bucky could have written. 

“If that’s okay?” asked Clint, once they’d broken apart.

“Yeah, pretty much perfect,” said Bucky, and reached out for Clint, wrapping an arm around his shoulders so that they were pressed together as closely as they could be while sat on the grass with Lucky lying half on Clint's lap. 

Their second kiss was even better than the first. Bucky took everything he'd wanted during their night together and Clint just opened up and let him, clinging to Bucky's arm.

“God, I missed you so much,” said Bucky, pulling away from Clint’s lips and pulling him into a proper hug, pressing his face into Clint’s neck and trying to get his head around the fact that this was reality.

“Yeah,” agreed Clint, shuffling closer into the hug and dislodging Lucky, who got up with an unimpressed huff they both ignored. “Me too.” He slid his hand into Bucky’s hair, pulling his face back and kissing him again. “Fuck, and I’ve been wanting to do that so much,” he added. “It was all I could think about, all through that night, but I didn’t think I could kiss you without giving far too much away.”

“I didn’t think I was allowed,” said Bucky. 

“You’re always allowed,” said Clint, so Bucky kissed Clint again, because if he was allowed, then he was damn well going to take advantage.

They traded kisses for a while and Bucky took his chance to slide his fingers under the hem of Clint’s shirt, pressing against the warmth of his skin. After a couple more kisses, he did the same with his metal hand.

Clint gave a twitch that he probably hoped Bucky hadn’t noticed, and the next kiss was hotter and heavier.

“Tony upgraded the sensors,” Bucky told him, ”so I can feel more with it now.”

“Fuck,” breathed Clint, and the tone of it was enough to make Bucky’s cock, already half-hard, perk up even further. Damnit, why did they have to be in a public park right now? 

“God, I really did miss you,” said Clint, and kissed him again.

When he pulled away, Bucky cleared his throat and pulled away a little bit, because he wasn’t sure he could face Steve’s reaction if he got arrested for public indecency, and it would probably get kinda complicated, given that he was pretty sure the police still wanted him on terrorism charges.

“I mean,” said Clint, clearing his throat, “I was a bit distracted trying to spend an entire sack of cash, but the rest of the time I was missing you.”

That seemed like a safer subject, or at least one that wasn’t going to end with Bucky fucking Clint right there on the grass, so he latched on to it.

“Please tell me you got something for yourself,” he said.

Clint’s face lit up, “Oh yeah, check them out. I got myself some custom Converse.” He pulled his leg up so that he could show off his shoes, which were bright purple with a little target on the side in lighter shades of lavender.

“Okay,” said Bucky. Well, he’d given him the money to spend on whatever he wanted, he guessed he didn’t get to complain if whatever it was made no damn sense to him.

“No, look, this is the best bit,” said Clint, turning his foot upside down to show Bucky the sole. There was a red star in a circle imprinted in the centre. “I wanted to remember they were from you, so I got the star from your arm on them.”

Bucky couldn’t stop himself from running his fingers over the star. “Okay, that’s pretty cool,” he said, trying not to sound like he’d been hit by a wave of emotion, because Clint had wanted to remember him so badly that he’d got his symbol stamped on his sole. Fuck, that should not be making him want to tear up so badly.

“What else did you do?” he asked, pulling away and letting Clint put his foot down. “Did you help the others?”

“Oh yeah,” said Clint. “I mean, that was the easy bit, mostly. I got Katya a black market passport and a plane ticket home, and gave her enough to keep her going for a few weeks once she got there. I gave Sonya enough to pay off her tuition fees and stock up on her son’s meds. Julie decided she wanted to go to one of those in-house rehab places, so I paid for that, and a couple of the others went with her. And Connor and his lot, they mostly just needed somewhere permanent to live and the space to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. I was going to pay up the rent on a couple of apartments for a few months, but it turned out my landlord was thinking about the building so, uh, I just bought it.”

“You bought the building,” repeated Bucky. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” said Clint, scratching at the back of his head. “Just, it made sense. And it turned out that quite a few others needed a stable, rent-controlled place to live, so we sorta worked out a pay-what-you-can thing to cover the utilities and maintenance. Connor’s looking at getting a mechanic apprenticeship, and Joe’s already working at the bodega. Ty’s decided he wants to get his GED, so I found a guy to create a fake paper trail for him so he can get all signed up.”

Bucky stared at him. “Shit, you move fast,” he said.

Clint laughed. “Nah, it’s just been a really long couple of months,” he said, and reached out for Bucky’s hand, holding it tight. “Really long.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky, because it felt like an eternity since he’d spent that night with Clint. “They got the programming out, you know.”

“I figured when I saw you’d been allowed out alone,” said Clint. He gave Bucky’s hand a squeeze. “I’m really pleased for you, man.”

Bucky returned his grin. “I’m pretty happy about it too,” he said, because he didn’t have the words to describe just how freeing it was, especially now he also had Clint. Fuck, he couldn’t think of a single thing in his life that wasn’t pretty much perfect now. When was the last time he’d been able to say that?

Had he ever been able to say that? Even back before the War, he’d spent half his time worrying about Steve’s health, or where they were going to get next month’s rent.

He was so caught up in Clint’s smile that he didn’t notice someone was getting close until they smacked Clint around the back of the head.

Bucky immediately went for a knife, jumping to his feet and wondering why the fuck he hadn’t brought a gun, before he recognised Natasha. Clint didn’t even bother moving, just rubbing at the back of his head,

“Clinton Francis Barton,” she hissed. “You have some serious explaining to do.”

“Hey, Nat,” said Clint, tipping his head back to look at her as Bucky tucked his knife away again, but kept his hand on the hilt just in case. In case of what, he wasn’t sure, but his heart was thumping double-time and he wasn’t ready to let go just yet.

“Don’t you ‘hey Nat’ me,” snapped Natasha. “It’s been two and a half years! Where the fuck have you been?”

Clint shrugged. “Brooklyn, mostly.”

She just stared at him, apparently beyond words, which felt fair.

“Oh, hey, Nat!” said Clint, scrambling to his feet. “Check it out, I got a dog!” He glanced around at where Lucky was sniffing at a nearby tree. “Hey, Lucky, c’mere boy, come and meet Natasha!”

Lucky glanced around and then started to trot over.

“A dog?” said Natasha. “Clint, I really hope you don’t think that’s going to distract me from tearing you a new one for just running off like that, and not once letting me know you were okay, and in _Brooklyn_? Really?” She fixed Bucky with a glare. “Or that you were kissing an ex-assassin that you shouldn’t even have ever met.”

“We hung out a bit while he was on the run,” said Clint, like that was any kind of explanation, bending down to pet Lucky as Natasha clearly wasn’t going to do it.

Natasha’s glare at Bucky hardened. “‘Hung out’,” she repeated.

“Yeah,” said Bucky, forcing himself to take his hand off the knife and glancing around to see how much of an audience they had. More than he wanted, but less than he’d feared. “Mostly we had coffee.”

Clint laughed at that, clipping a leash to Lucky and then standing back up. “Sure. Coffee. If that’s what we’re calling it.” He gave Bucky a wink that Bucky rolled his eyes at while his cheeks grew warm, because he was probably going to get to do all that other stuff with Clint again, and kiss him while he did it.

Natasha looked between the two of them with narrow eyes, then glanced around the park before jabbing a finger at Clint’s face. “You’re coming back to the Tower so I can yell at you without an audience.”

“Yeah,” agreed Clint, then glanced at Bucky and reached out to take his hand. “And after, maybe we can get some coffee?”

Bucky grinned. “Sounds good.”

****

Clint didn't let go of Bucky's hand the whole way back to the Tower, even with juggling Lucky's leash and his bag. Bucky held on just as firmly, squeezing tighter whenever he found himself doubting that this was really happening. Clint really loved him back, and wanted to be with him. Bucky wasn't quite sure what that would look like now that he was living in the Tower, especially with Clint's job and Steve's offer to put Bucky on the Avengers, but however it ended up would be better than never seeing Clint again.

“Are you sure about coming up?” he asked Clint quietly, as Natasha stalked ahead. “You're gonna get an interrogation.”

“Probably more than one,” agreed Clint, and shrugged. “I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but it's not like I can avoid it, not without avoiding you too, and I didn't spend three weeks hanging out in Central Park hoping to see you just to run off now.”

Bucky blinked at him. “Three weeks?”

“Yeah,” said Clint, glancing at him. “Well, like I said, you didn't leave me a telephone number, and I wasn't going to go straight to the Tower without checking it was what you wanted.”

“Why wouldn't I want that?” asked Bucky.

Clint just shrugged again. “I don't know. Seemed kinda unbelievable that you would.”

Bucky glanced at him, taking in the awkward hunch of Clint's shoulders and the self-deprecating twist of his mouth.

“I love you,” he said, because it seemed like he needed to hammer that in a bit. “Given a choice, I want to be wherever you are. If that means going back to sitting on Spitzer Street every night, then I'll be more than happy to do it if you’re there.”

Clint gave him a sceptical look. “Watching me go off with other men?”

“You'd be going home with me at the end of the night. Right?” said Bucky, because that was the only important thing.

Clint stared at him for long enough for Bucky to have to guide him around a sign advertising bagels. “Jesus, you're just something else,” he said eventually, shaking his head. 

Bucky didn't know what that meant, but he was going to go ahead and assume it was a good thing, because Clint was still holding his hand.

“It doesn't matter anyway,” added Clint. “I'm changing careers.”

Clint hadn't ever once indicated that he was anything less than completely happy with being a sex worker. “Seriously?” 

“Yeah,” said Clint as they turned down the block that the Tower was on. “Being with you kinda left me just comparing every other guy and finding them lacking.”

Bucky tried not to smirk at that but from the roll of Clint’s eyes, he wasn’t successful. Well, fuck it, he’d apparently managed to ruin Clint for all other men in one sex marathon, despite a seventy year dry spell, he deserved to smirk.

“So, what are you going to do instead?”

Clint shrugged. “Whatever means I get to stay close to you. Where are you going to be?”

Bucky thought about Steve's offer to be an Avenger and wondered what Clint would think about that. He'd been pretty clear that he was done with fighting, but that had been before he'd had a pretty good time taking out the Russians. 

Natasha turned to stand by the parking lot entrance, arms crossed and tapping her foot.

“Get inside,” she hissed at Clint, who just sighed and did as he was told.

****

Clint let Lucky off the leash once they were in the elevator, then took Bucky’s hand again when he’d stood up. Natasha stared at their joined hands, then gave Clint a very long look followed by a raised eyebrow.

Clint sighed. “Yeah, we’ll talk about that as well, Christ, this is going to be like the debrief after Budapest.”

“It’s going to be worse than that,” she said darkly, and Clint’s shoulders slumped.

Bucky squeezed his hand in support, and Clint glanced at him. “It’s a good thing you’re hot enough to make the third degree totally worth it, Handsome.”

Bucky didn’t know about that but he also couldn’t stop smiling at Clint, so he just squeezed his hand again.

When the elevator doors opened, Tony and Steve were in the lounge. They turned and just stared at Clint for a moment.

“Holy shit, the prodigal son returns,” said Tony. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“Brooklyn, apparently,” said Natasha in a voice that promised knives. 

Steve walked over to shake Clint’s hand. “It’s good to see you again, Agent Barton.”

“Pretty sure it’s just Mr. Barton now,” said Clint, dropping Bucky’s hand so that he could shake Steve’s which was unacceptable, and not something Bucky thought he was going to be able to forgive Steve for.

Clint reached down to take Bucky’s again the minute he let go of Steve’s, and Steve’s eyes dropped to look at it, then back up at Bucky with an amused smirk. “Something you want to tell me, Bucky?”

Bucky shrugged. “Yeah, my boyfriend’s hotter than yours.” He hadn’t realised until he said it just how great it would feel to be able to call Clint his boyfriend. Part of him was expecting Clint to protest the title, but he just grinned and squeezed Bucky’s hand.

Steve started laughing as Tony made a weird gasping noise, clutching his hands over his chest. 

Natasha snagged Clint’s shirt and tugged at it. “No more witty banter until we’ve talked.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Clint, and glanced over at where Lucky was sniffing idly at the furniture. “Keep on eye on Lucky, will ya, Handsome?”

“Sure,” said Bucky, finally letting go of Clint as Natasha dragged him off in the direction of her room.

“You know, when you said you were going to read in the park, I didn’t realise that would end with you coming home with a boyfriend,” said Steve.

Read in the park. Ah crap. Bucky patted over his pockets, but he knew it was a futile gesture. He’d left his book on the grass.

Eh, now Clint was here, he could teach Bucky ASL. He wouldn’t need a book.

****

Bucky got Lucky a bowl of water, and then they both retreated to his room.

“Tell Clint where we are, once he’s done with Natasha,” he told JARVIS.

“Of course, Sergeant Barnes,” said JARVIS.

Lucky inspected Bucky’s room for a while, sniffing at the bed and the stack of books beside it, then made himself at home on the pillow Bucky put down for him in lieu of a dog bed. Stark had given him too many pillows anyway, and he figured anything he did to win Lucky over was going to give him brownie points with Clint.

Not that it seemed like he needed them, but Bucky wasn’t going to go taking shit for granted, not even now that he had everything he’d ever wanted.

It took nearly an hour before Clint tapped on the door and then came inside, barely glancing around before he dropped onto the bed next to where Bucky was stretched out, trying to focus on a book but mostly quietly fizzing with anticipation.

“Ugh, I remember why I hated debriefs so much now.”

“What did you tell her?” asked Bucky, putting the book down, and then giving in to temptation and rolling over to drape himself over Clint.

Clint turned so that he could hold him back, pressing his face against Bucky’s shoulder for a moment before pulling away. “I kept it pretty vague,” he said. “She wasn’t really interested in how I was making money anyway, just on why I didn’t contact her.” He leaned in and kissed Bucky. “And a bit why I decided to turn up now,” he said. “She was kinda disgusted when I told her that I just didn’t want to go on being apart from you.”

Bucky found himself grinning again, and leaned in to kiss Clint in the hope it would hide just how dopey with love he probably looked.

Clint happily kissed him back, hands smoothing down his back and then sliding up under Bucky’s shirt, palms pressed tight against his skin.

“I really want to have sex with you without being paid for it,” said Clint, against Bucky’s lips. “We can do that, right?”

“Fuck, yeah,” said Bucky, rolling him over to brace above him, just looking down at Clint’s wide grin and feeling happiness fill his body up all the way down to his toes. He slipped his metal hand underneath Clint’s t-shirt, curving his fingers around his hip, and Clint shivered. “I reckon we get to do whatever the fuck we want, right now.”

“Awesome,” said Clint, and pulled him down into another kiss.

They barely stopped kissing the whole time. Bucky felt like he was never going to get enough of tasting Clint’s mouth after all those months of wanting it and not being able to have it. Even as he pushed inside Clint, one arm hooked under his knee to hold him open, he couldn’t take his mouth off Clint’s. He kissed him all through fucking him, swallowing down the moans and gasps that Clint disintegrated into when Bucky wrapped his metal hand under his cock, and swallowing the groan as he came.

He had to pull away to drag in air as Clint patted weakly at his back.

“Fuck,” muttered Clint breathlessly, “fuck, Bucky, come on, come in me.”

Bucky took Clint at his word, fucking into him with short, hard strokes. With his mouth unoccupied, he found he couldn’t keep in a stream of all the words he’d spent their time together choking down.

“Fuck, Clint, you feel so good, you’re so good, I love you so much, love all of this, fuck, just _look_ at you…”

He came with a cry, then dropped down to kiss Clint again the moment he’d got his breath back, because he didn’t ever want to stop doing that.

Clint seemed as happy to just kiss and kiss as Bucky pulled out of him, then shifted them onto their sides so that he could hold Clint in his arms and turn the kisses soft and languid.

“Fuck, we’re gonna do that so often,” said Clint, in between kisses. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky, finally forcing himself to give his lips a break. “I think I can handle that.”

“Cool,” said Clint, snuggling closer into his arms.

Bucky kissed his cheek, and then his forehead, and then just slowly kissed his way down to his neck before returning back to his mouth, because he didn’t want to go more than a minute or two without kissing that.

“Hey, uh, so, remember how I said I bought my apartment building? Well, uh, that was after Connor and Ty had already moved into my apartment,” said Clint when Bucky shifted back down to his neck.

Bucky just hummed agreement, because he was getting to the curve that ran into Clint’s shoulder and he’d been thinking about those shoulders for far too long to get distracted now that he could kiss them.

“Yeah, so, Lucky and me are technically homeless,” said Clint. “Any chance we could stay here?”

Bucky pulled away to look at him. “I thought that was already sorted,” he said. “You said you wanted to stay with me.”

“Yeah,” agreed Clint. “But you didn’t say anything about it, and I wanted to make sure.”

Bucky snorted. “I don’t know how I can make it any clearer that I want you wherever I am,” he said. “Maybe sky-writing? Steve said I'd always have a room wherever he lived, which seems pretty set to be in a billionaire’s mansion for a while, so there’s going to be plenty of space.”

Clint smiled, the softer one that only came out when he really meant it. “What kind of rent are we talking about?” he asked, lifting a flirty eyebrow. “Because I kinda gave all my money away before I came here.” He leaned in to kiss Bucky again. “Any chance I can pay you in kisses?”

Bucky snorted. “There's every chance,” he said, and took a moment for another kiss before adding, “but I gotta warn you, I don't offer any discounts. Not military, not friends and family, not even for ex-Avengers.”

“Guess I'll just have to make sure I kiss you every day,” said Clint, and turned the next kiss into a long, slow, lazy one, their tongues moving together as if they’d always known how to do this dance.

_He never kissed any of those other guys like this,_ thought Bucky with smug satisfaction. He knew he really shouldn’t be comparing this, or getting possessive, but he couldn’t help it. As proof that this was more than a business transaction, the kiss was pretty conclusive.

Which made him realise something. He pulled away and gave Clint a serious look. “Hey, you know I’m just kidding, right? You don't owe me anything, and you don't have to do anything you don’t want, and I will still want you here, even if you just want to be friends.”

Clint laughed. “You're an idiot. A sweet idiot, sure, but still an idiot. Kissing you, have sex with you, that's never felt like something I needed to be paid to do, not even that first time. Why do you think I kept offering discounts? It felt kinda underhand to be getting money for something I wanted so much.”

“Oh,” said Bucky, quietly. He took a deep breath to try and contain the way his chest felt like it was going to break apart at the swell of emotion. “Okay, great. Seems like we’re pretty set, then.”

“Yup,” said Clint, happily. “Got you, got my dog, got my fucking awesome Converse. The only other thing we need is a coffee machine for in here.”

Bucky had been about to kiss him, but he pulled back at that. “What? There’s one in the kitchen.”

“The kitchen is miles away,” said Clint. “All the way down the hall and across the lounge, first thing in the morning? No fucking way. We need one in here. That way we can have our first cup of the day in bed together.” He ran his hands up Bucky’s back. “Doesn’t that sound good?”

That did sound good, and anyway, Bucky didn’t want to waste time arguing about it when he could be kissing Clint. “Yeah, okay,” he said, and leaned in to kiss him again.

****

The whole team had gone along on the first few missions to take out Hydra’s European bases, which Bucky had a feeling was because Steve had mandated them as bonding experiences. By the fourth one though, people had started to have other things to do. Steve hung on for another couple of trips, but by the sixth, it was just Bucky and Clint.

Which was kinda how Bucky had wanted it to be from the start.

This particular base was in Hungary and was probably already half-empty, but Bucky was pretty sure he remembered coming here once to have his arm fixed, so he thought there might be blueprints down there.

Even with Tony’s upgrades, he didn’t want these assholes having the plans to any part of him.

“Ready?” asked Clint, adjusting the strap of his quiver.

Two months of being on the same superhero team and seeing Clint in his combat suit every time they got called out, and it still took Bucky’s breath away every time he saw him. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the way the arm holes were cut to frame the curve of his shoulder down into his bicep, or the lines of the body armour down to his hips, or the way those pants hugged his ass, damn.

Mostly, though, it was the look in Clint’s eyes when he was holding his bow. He looked like he knew there was nothing that could stop him from fucking Hydra’s shit up, skilled and ready and so hot that Bucky found it hard to concentrate on anything else.

“Yeah,” said Bucky, sliding his last gun into its holster. “Let’s go take these bastards out.”

Clint grinned and opened up the quinjet door, and they slipped out into the Hungarian forest together. Time to get to work.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Jack Rob Ronin Flynn Clint Hawkeye Barton](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18069908) by [Kangofu_CB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/pseuds/Kangofu_CB)




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